Babes In The Wood

Babes in the Wood is a traditional children's tale, as well as a popular pantomime subject. It has also been the name of some other unrelated works. The phrase has passed into the language, referring to innocents in any potentially dangerous situation.

Traditional tale

The traditional children's tale (attributed to a Mother Goose rhyme but first published as a ballad by Thomas Millington in 1595) is of two children abandoned in a wood who die and are covered with leaves by robins. The Walt Disney Company re-worked this tale, incorporating some material from Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm and adding a village of friendly elves (a feature not traditionally present in either tale) and a happy ending, and on 1932-11-19 released an animated short film entitled Babes in the Wood. The story is also incorporated into pantomimes. However, for various reasons including both the brevity of the original and the target pantomime audience of young children, modern pantomimes by this name usually combine this story with parts of the modern Robin Hood story (employing the supporting characters from it, such as Maid Marian, rather than Robin himself, however) to lengthen it.

Other works

Babes in the Wood was a story by Michael Arlen. Babes in the Wood was a British television situation comedy series broadcast on ITV from 1998-1999. The title was a pun on the pantomime story name, involving a group of attractive women (the "babes") who shared a flat in St John's Wood in London (the "wood"). There have been several songs by this title, at least one of them related to the traditional tale.

References

  • This gives two alternative versions of the traditional tale.
  • This includes the text of the Thomas Millington ballad.
  • This is the Mother Goose rhyme.
  • Song lyrics, a variant on the Mother Goose rhyme.
  • An article on the TV situation comedy.

External links

 

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