Mary Mary quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells And pretty maids all in a row.
And now for the most deceiving of the lot; Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, quite contrary indeed. With silver bells and cockle shells conjuring pretty images of delicately arranged gardens and good looking maids it is all a lie. Queen Mary I is again the menace of this nursery rhyme, with the silver bells, cockle shells, and maids are actually all just instruments of torture and death. Silver bells are thumbscrews; cockleshells were attached to the genitals and maids where a device used to behead people - actually called The Maiden. The garden is to give the allusion of graveyards, which were increasing in size with those who dared comply with the protestant faith. Well thats that, sorry everyone. Now that weve turned your childhood on its head were going to go break the news to some children that the Easter bunny got mowed down in a hit and run, just to stay in the spirit of things.