Solomon Grundy (nursery rhyme)
| "Solomon Grundy" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| Language | English |
| Written | England |
| Published | 1842 |
| Songwriter(s) | Traditional |
"Solomon Grundy" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19299.
Lyrics
The rhyme has varied very little since it was first collected by James Orchard Halliwell and published in 1842 with the lyrics:
- Solomon Grundy,
- Born on a Monday,
- Christened on Tuesday,
- Married on Wednesday,
- Took ill on Thursday,
- Grew worse on Friday,
- Died on Saturday,
- Buried on Sunday.
- That was the end,
- Of Solomon Grundy.[1]
In popular culture
- The DC Comics character Solomon Grundy, a large, strong zombie supervillain, invented as an adversary for the Green Lantern in 1944, and also a foe of Batman, was named after this nursery rhyme.[2] He appears in the games Batman: Arkham City and Injustice: Gods Among Us, where he recites parts of the lyrics while performing certain moves.
- Comic artist and writer Kaori Yuki wrote a short story centered around the poem using characters from her series God Child, which was published at the end of book five.[3]
- The poet Philippe Soupault adapted this rhyme and called it "The Life of Philippe Soupault."[4]
- Director Danny Boyle has a film adaptation of "Solomon Grundy" planned, but delayed it due to similarities between its story and the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.[5]
- The name and structure of Ian McDonald's science fiction novella "The Days of Solomon Gursky" (Asimov's Science Fiction June 1998, reprinted in Mike Ashley's 2006 anthology The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction)[6] is based on the nursery rhyme. The title character (his name coincides with Mordecai Richler's 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here) invents a way to resurrect the dead using nanotechnology, developed in McDonald's 1994 novel Necroville. The spin-off novella consists of seven episodical chapters (titled after the days of the week) showing in increasing intervals Gursky's life from the early 21st century through the posthuman future in space to the end of the universe when he constructs a Tipler machine to be reborn.
- The Bluetones song "Solomon Bites the Worm" (1998) was based on this nursery rhyme.
- The premiere of Sesame Street (air date November 10, 1969) features a Solomon Grundy cartoon in which he washes only one part of the left half of his body each day. At the end of the week Solomon is still "half dirty."
See also
References
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 394-5.
- ^ M. Conroy, 500 Comicbook Villains (Collins & Brown, 2004), p. 262.
- ^ Kaori Yuki, Godchild, vol 5 (VIZ Media LLC, 2007).
- ^ Stewart, Susan, Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature, Johns Hopkins, 1979, p. 191. ISBN 0-8018-2258-0.
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421715/trivia
- ^ The Days of Solomon Gursky title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
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