"Nah, Nah Nah, Nah, Is No Good. Chop Him Up For Firewood....."

[Atheist]

Anybody here know how this childrens' chant continues?

[Mamyalynne]

//In Belfast, for example, children in large families are often forced to tend younger brothers and sisters, and their frustration may come out in ropeskipping rhymes. One child commented that her mother didn't like her to skip too much, since it wore out her shoes.

My wee brother is no good. Chop him up for firewood.

When he's dead Cut off his head, Make it into gingerbread.//

[Mamyalynne]

There are regional variations.

https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Society-and-Culture/People-and-Places/Question120182-2.html

[Mozz71]

That is NOT how you make gingerbread.

[Mamyalynne]

:-)

[Ken4155]

Mozz; "That is NOT how you make gingerbread."

Don't knock what you haven't tried :-)

[Buenchico]

This might be of interest:
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/12/16/archives/-over-the-garden-wall-i-let-the-baby-fall-the-poetry-of.html

Also, from Marc Bolan ('Hippy Gumbo'):
"Met a man he was nice
said his name was paradise
Didn't realise at the time
that his face and mind were mine
Hippy Gumbo he's no good
Chop him up for firewood
It seemed good and it seemed right
that I should dig him on the night
but in the morning with the sun he pulled an automatic gun
He blew my soul, he blew my brain
he said I could not do the same
Hippy Gumbo he's no good
Chop him up for firewood
Hippy Gumbo he's no good
Chop him up and burn the wood"

[Jackdaw33]

Even as late as the 1950s children in the NE were still singing skipping rhymes about Mary Ann Cotton, who was hanged in Durham in 1873 for murdering her children for the insurance money.

Mary Ann Cotton,
She's dead and she's rotten.
She lies in her bed with her eyes wide open.
Sing, sing, what shall I sing?
Mary Ann Cotton is tied up with string.
Where, where? Up in the air
Sellimg black puddens a penny a pair.

[Atheist]

Our version continues...
When he's dead
Stamp on his head,
Eat him up for currant bread.