Do You Know the Muffin Man?

Do You Know the Muffin Man?

A silly little rhyming game or a dire warning?

“Do you know the Muffin Man?

The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man

Do you know the Muffin Man

Who lives in Drury Lane?”

Should I know the Muffin Man?

Will you tell me? What is his tale?

Do I want to know that man

Behind his friendly veil?

What lurks there… can you tell me…

Of what evil hides in plain sight…

Warning what darkness you see…

In soiled innocence plight?

Rife the news of missed women's

Bodies dragged for in tributary…

And all down along the Thames…

Where evil might carry.

Is’t worse than th’Angel Maker,

That loathsome ‘Ogress of Reading,’

Who wound tape o’ dressmaker

Round babes ‘stead o’bedding?

This Muffin Man of-whom you warn…

Is he worse than ‘Melia Dyer,

Who four hundred babes did not mourn,

But murdered for false hire?

Is’t worse than tales weighted hard

Of life there and down Feathers Court

Where life comes so cheaply marred

And death doth hope abort?

This warning dire you deliver

To ‘ware the wicked Muffin Man,

Does set my soul a-quiver

In fear of the villain. 

I don’t want to know that man

That Muffin Man, that Muffin Man

I don’t want to know that man

Who lives in Drury Lane!

Amelia Dyer killed 400 or more mostly illegitimate babies between 1880 and 1896. She was paid -- a practice called “baby farming” -- to take the children, usually with the understanding that she was adopting them or finding homes for them. Dyer killed the infants by wrapping dressmaker’s tape around their little necks " but not so tightly as to kill them quickly -- and slowly strangling them. She confessed to her crimes, -- and to her pleasure watching the life slip away from those choking innocents -- admitting, “You'll know all mine by the tape around their necks.” She was tried and hanged in 1896 for murder. 

Drury Lane was long infamous -- even in Shakespeare’s time -- as a place of abject poverty, of moral and social degradation. From the 16th through the 18th centuries, Covent Garden, especially in the area of Drury Lane, was the primary location of London’s sex trade. It was long known for it’s questionable ladies whose clientele included not just the poor and criminally or socially questionable inmates of the area, but also privileged gentlemen seeking entertainments found between Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Doubtless many of Amelia Dyer’s victims were progeny of that human flesh trade.

by D. Denise Dianaty

Reviews

[realmwriter]

So then this begs the question: Who is the Muffin Man? I only know of the limerick. But now I find myself engrossed with the Muffin Man in a way for which I had not previously considered or known. I will endeavor to brighten my knowledge, or lack there of, from this fleshly, bone chilling tale of death, wrought with blood and gore even if it isn't spilled from every line and written in every word. Well done indeed.

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. From my research, I couldn't find that the rhyme was ever more than a Victoria-era rhyming game. But, also from my research, I'm not the only one who felt some threat in its lines: there's a proliferation of Muffin Man horror fiction out there. However, the history in my homage is quite true of life in the Drury Lane area and of Amelia Dyer. Who needs fiction when true life is so very horrific?

[realmwriter]

Right. Fiction be damned.

[MomzillaNC]

. . . . . . . ;P

[therisa]

This is one nursey rhyme, I don't remember ever hearing, as a child. But it did spark a memory, from one of the Shrek movies, as the Gingerbreadman sang, "Do you remember the muffin man?" Think it was the first one, but not sure. As for your poem, a very dark twist on this nursery rhyme.

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. A very dark twist and all true.

[therisa]

Your welcome, Momzilla.

[Matching Socks]

That just gave me the worst kind of chills. Brr. Good writing.

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. Yes, reality is for more horrifying than fiction.

[Wandervogel]

very nice piece....loved the rhyme..

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you.

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A historical lesson and delightfully delicious tale of another horror that rears it's ugly head, well done, good read.

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks so much.

[Pryde Foltz]

A terrifying treat of write for Halloween … you bent this nursery rhyme very well.

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you.

Who need's fantasy when fact is so deep down in your bones sickeningly twisted?

[Pryde Foltz]

Yes … the afterword was hard to read … the psychopathic sadist is always the hardest to comprehend.

[MomzillaNC]

Truly. Maybe that's why I struggle to compose pure dark fantasy. I've too much personal experience of the real horrors humankind is capable of. It's amazing, y'know, that the same species that gave us Mother Theresa and Bach also gave us Hitler and Hustler (and far worse)

[Pryde Foltz]

That is easily explained … yep it is … lol ... ego begets what we see as evil … those who transcend ego become saintly. Ego is fuelled by fear and desire (emotional and physical). The more driven by ego one is … say for example the need to rule/control the world … the greater 'evils' you will commit.

[MomzillaNC]

Very true. This speaks to something I've trying to compose right now, lines from which detail that dogma excludes and denies, while Faith is inclusive and hopeful.

[Pryde Foltz]

You are definitely onto something.

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks. :D

[Listmaker]

So incredibly powerful. Pure evil does exist.

[MomzillaNC]

Truly. You don't have to look for it in fairytales. Thanks for reading.

[Rene Salinas]

And there was my memory of childhood playing ,running around singing this with that peculiar tune. After reading this however.... From the writing standpoint is a narrative with rhyme obviously the original Victorian nature has been taken out, which if memory doesn't fail me is becuase the muffins were delivered at the back, kitchen door so to speak so they could actually see the guy coming and hence the tune I guess. But in this twist of the tale it took a more sinister turn and it invokes an image of somone that has very little to do with innocence and child play. The narrative then supported with what it seems to be some factual information as a way to emphasize the twist.

I cant wait to see what you do to Ring a Ring a Roses....


Thankyou

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. I may have to do something with "Ring a Ring a Roses" now… :D

[Laura Lynn]

please do ;/ I've always loved the muffin man, my mother used to sing this song to me

[MomzillaNC]

You'll never remember that the same way again…

[Chris]

So many of the accepted "nursery rhymes" and childrens' jump-rope and play ditties come with a "price". How forgetful we are.

The loss of innocence comes dear...

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks for reviewing.

Actually, I couldn't find any factual evidence that "The Muffin Man" was ever one of those dark tales, as so many of the nursery rhymes and fairytales are found upon. It seems to have been a harmless rhyming game.

But, there is a whole range of stuff out there where people have speculated on a wicked or even a demon-headed muffin man. Personally, I always felt the rhyme seemed a warning -- of what, I could not say. I guess, given all the fiction I discovered in my research, I'm not the only one who felt that warning.

I did find centuries of tragic tales of abject poverty and human degradation around the history of Drury Lane. And stumbled across that history of Amelia Dyer.

[Chris]

History is what we allow ourselves to remember

[MomzillaNC]

Very true.

[Tate Morgan]

Your best work on this by far bravo

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you very much.