Дети в лесу: Традиционная английская сказка

Traditional children's tale
the children's tale

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Colour plates from Randolph Caldecott's book of the rhyme
Babes in the Wood is a traditional English children's tale, as well as a popular pantomime subject. It has also been the name of some other unrelated works. The expression has passed into common language, referring to inexperienced innocents entering unawares into any potentially dangerous or hostile situation.

The traditional children's tale is of two children abandoned in a wood, who die and are covered with leaves by robins. It was first published as an anonymous broadside ballad by Thomas Millington in Norwich in 1595 with the title "The Norfolk gent his will and Testament and howe he Commytted the keepinge of his Children to his own brother whoe delte most wickedly with them and howe God plagued him for it". The tale has been reworked in many forms; it frequently appears attributed as a Mother Goose rhyme. Around 1840, Richard Barham included a spoof of the story in his Ingoldsby Legends, under the title of The Babes in the Wood; or, the Norfolk Tragedy. Harris cheekily claims in an endnote It starred Bobby Bennett as Robin Hood, Peter Goodwright as Alan A'Dale, Susan Maughan as Maid Marian, Roy Rolland as Nanny Riley, John Gower as the Sheriff of Nottingham, Eddie Large as Private Large, Syd Little as Private Little, Colin Prince as Little John, Norman Collier as Will Scarlett, Bonnie Langford as Babe Tilly, and Mark Curry as Babe Willy. The village signs at Griston and nearby Watton depict the story. In the folklore version, the uncle resents the task and pays two men to take the children into the woods and kill them. Finding themselves unable to go through with the act, the criminals abandon the children in the wood where, unable to fend for themselves, they eventually die. Another version, from Lancashire, has it that the tale is based on real events of 1374, when "the villainous Robert de Holland" illegally seized the land of 13 year old Roger de Langley and his young bride. The children flee to the nearby woods and are cared for by loyal retainers until they are rescued by their legal guardian John of Gaunt.

Traditional English singers Bob and Ron Copper sang "Babes in the Wood" and their version was released on the EFDSS LP "Traditional Songs From Rottingdean". According to Steve Roud, the Coppers' abridged version of the story and the song's tune came from musician and composer William Gardiner (1770 1853).