Brief History: This is a pretty well know rhyme, but just in case you never heard this repetitive ditty, this is the story of the failing construction and locking up ladies. There’s actually nine verses, yet still no clear plot! It goes as far back as the Middle Ages, when Britain was under shifting control from Saxons to Danes… or was it the other way around. Over 600 plus years the bridge was built and rebuilt while suspected of being the witness to major events. The transition from pagan tradition to Christian culture (some people theorized that the bridge’s structural issues came from not performing a sacrificial ritual of a child upon its first creation - nothing says stand strong for 600 years like the blood of kid, I guess). A Viking attack. Heads of traitors on pikes to warn enemies sailing on the Thames River. The drowning of a Jewish ship being exiled from London. Tudor hops and homes built on the bridge’s surface adding weight to the crumbling stones. Basically, the bridge kept literally falling down and being rebuilt. When they were going to rebuild it again in the 1970s, a rich man bought the crumbling bridge and took it to the United States.
Analysis: Here is where I’m going to talk about the unnamed “lady”. It’s been speculated that the lady is a historical figure connected with the bridge. There were at least two medieval queens who either had connections to the construction or taxing of the London Bridge. Some think the lady, called Lady Lee in some older versions, could be a reference to the Leigh family of nobles who held political power for a time when a member became Mayor of London. I think it’s more likely that the Lady is a metaphor instead of a specific person. A tad disappointing and less morbid than my usual choice of theories, but hear me out. There are 3 main metaphor theories I found:
1) the Lady represents the Virgin Mary and her protecting the city from Viking attacks.
2) the Lady is the River Lea which connects to the Thames. . . Not sure what the significance is of that and it’s boring metaphor. Maybe the Rive Lea had less waste in it until it mixed with the Thames?
3) the Lady represents human sacrifice. Beside the sacrifice of a child to secure the strength of a bridge, Romans believed in the “sacrifice of a shadow” to strengthen a new bridge. A person stood near the bridge’s foundation and their shadow was measured. Bridge builders would bury the measurement in the stones. What’s the catch? It was believed that the owner of the shadow used would died within 40 days. So dance along, Lady Lee.
Blame it on the Victorians: From the 1700s up to the 1900s, parents loved to teach their kids rhymes that could be sung a round like London Bridges, Ring Around the Roses, Row Row Row your Boat, and Oranges and Lemons. Most of these had a darkness or moral lesson to them (look up Orange and Lemons and wonder how decapitation got into a kids’ song). By the time the Victorian era was ending, the darkness the was a part of life. It wouldn’t be until post-WWII culture would start to clean up nursery rhymes to protect their kids from the darkness.
Final Thoughts: You know where London Bridge is now - ARIZONA! You know. The desert with very few natural large water sources. Look it up! Also look up the movie Bridge Across Time staring David Hasselhoff as a Lake Havasu City lawman hunting down the ghost of Jack the Ripper.
