V is for Victuals

        (My theme for this year’s A to Z Blog Challenge is traditional English language nursery rhymes, and their block printed illustrations.)

There was an old woman, and what do you think?

She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink!

Victuals and drink were the chief of her diet,

And yet this old woman could never be quiet.

        I feel that this old woman and I have a lot in common.  I, too, count victuals and drink as the chief of my diet.  This verse belongs to a class of nursery rhymes that state truisms, although this one goes on with the further information that the old woman never shuts up.  It definitely sounds like it’s putting a negative spin on her, which seems a little harsh.

        I am mildly amused by the truism, as intended, but it does seem a little difficult to illustrate in an interesting way.  What can you really do except show an old woman eating?  This first illustration also tries to get at her constant chattering, not only with the open mouth (which could also be for eating, of course), but also with the parrot.  She seems to be conversing with the cat, as well.  (If that is even a cat.  It almost looks more like a huge rat.)  The second illustration gives the woman a delightfully enthusiastic expression as she tucks in, a servant bringing on the next course.  The third illustration shows the woman surrounded by vast quantities of meat.  These
all seem to want to emphasize the amount of victuals the woman is feasting on, as though she’s unusually gluttonous.  This again seems to be an unfair negative spin, as she may be unusually garrulous, but as far as I can tell her diet is no different from any other mortal’s.

        Do you think there’s some intrinsic connection between eating food and talking a lot?  (There’s certainly a strong correlation between eating no food and not talking.)

        A final note for impressionable children: Make sure your victuals include a much higher ratio of vegetables to meat than these pictures show.

[Pictures: Wood engraving from Mother Goose’s Melodies, published by C.S. Francis and Company, 1833 (Image from Internet Archive);

Color wood block print by Walter Crane from The Absurd A.B.C., engraved and printed by Edmund Evans, c 1874 (Image from Internet Archive);

Illustration by J.F. Goodridge from The Original Mother Goose Melodies with Silhouette Illustrations, 1878 (Image from International Children’s Digital Library).]