This little piggy went to market....but, wait, what does that really mean?

 

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                This little piggy went to market….so begins one of the most familiar nursery rhymes in the English language. Most of us had a beloved adult play the game with us, using toes or fingers to count off each pig as they recited or sang the ditty. It’s still played today. I did it with my children and will one day do it with the grand kids I hope to have.

                Here’s the basic rhyme:

 

                Innocent or not? I say it’s innocent. No one really knows how old it is but the first complete version appeared in The Famous Tommy Thumb’s Little Story Book, which appeared in London in 1760. That’s 254 years ago and it was likely known before that time.

                In 2018, a 22-year-old individual posted on what was then Twitter, stating she’d just realized it wasn’t about market. That first little pig didn’t make a trip to shop but was slaughter house bound. That so-called revelation sparked a round of controversary with responses from much older folks who were aghast. “I didn’t know” became the outcry but once they did, many threatened to retire the rhyme.

                My response is “Oh, really?” with a quirked eyebrow. As a student of history (yes, I earned a BA degree in history a very long time ago) when an animal went to be slaughtered, no one called it going to market. Market or Market Day was reserved for buying, selling, and trading. Those 18^th century folks didn’t mince words. They didn’t describe reality in cutesy terms. If a pig was headed to be butchered, they called it what it was, butchered, slaughtered, or killed.

                I’m sure the young woman who revealed the deep and secret truth behind the nursery rhyme might have been aware of ag markets. We hear the markets on the radio or see the results on television. The savvy can look up the current markets or market price. Many a fine dining establishment offers entrees, often steak, at “market price.”

                Animals earmarked to become food, which was and is a very real necessity in the world unless someone wants to become vegan or vegetarian, were slaughtered right there on ye old farm. Still are, in some cases. I’ve been present when chickens were killed and dressed for frying. After my marriage to a man raised on a farm, I was there when the family chose a beef, killed it, and dressed it out on the farm. We then cut up the meat, packaged it for the freezer, and had beef for the future. I also cooked steaks from the animal. Nothing is more delicious than fresh killed beef!

                In villages, towns, and cities, animals didn’t go to market. They were killed by a knacker or butcher or at a slaughterhouse. Their flesh was SOLD in the market but it’s not where they were dispatched.

                Fast forward a bit. I grew up with a dad who, before and after his Army service, worked at Swift’s, one of the major packers in my hometown of St. Joseph, MO. Sometimes on payday, he brought home fresh beef as well as bucks, which is how I first learned fresh beef is tasty. No one ever said he worked at the market but at the packing house or at Swift’s. When Swift’s closed in 1971, it wasn’t announced the local market was closed.

                The end of Swift’s became a beginning of a new career for my dad and chapter for our family. After spending some time as an over-the-road route driver, selling candy and cigarettes all over northeastern Kansas, he became a USDA poultry inspector. Chickens, in case some aren’t aware, are killed to become food. It’s the way it works at the poultry plant, chicken plant, or processing plant. Nothing was ever said about a market.

                The market is where I go to buy my groceries. Yes, it’s also the grocery store or supermarket but I grew up hearing it called the market by Granny.

                In 21^st century efforts to be “woke”, imagination and history is being destroyed in so many ways. History is being rewritten, monuments are coming down as if that can erase what happened in the past, and nursery rhymes are under attack. No one seems to keep in mind when these were first written or how they reflect the world around them. It doesn’t stop with ancient poems, either. Songs, newer poetry, movies, books, and television programs are examined with modern, often liberal eyes. Then they are attacked, dissected, and diminished. This little piggy is but one of many rhymes under fire these days.

                Yet the same who do this cry out about banning books.

                As for me, I’ll play the little piggies game and hand it down. But then I know well where my meat comes from to reach my table, whether it’s commercially slaughtered or ended life in a less formal environment. I’m known to enjoy fish fresh from the creek, river, or lake and animals taken by a hunter using skill.  Oh, wait, that might lead to a discussion about guns…. not happening here.

                If my theories offend or you disagree, so be it. It’s your right and prerogative but let’s learn the actual history before we condemn traditional nursery rhymes from the past.

                That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.