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Jon, the same interp first occurred to me when I had a baby. Makes perfect sense. It also partly resembles OE riddles that are so beautifully written. Here's what a friend's copy of Iona and Peter Opie's venerable _Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes_ [1992 ed] states: Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock; When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, Down will come baby, cradle, and all. The best-known lullaby both in England and America, it is regularly crooned in hundreds of thousands of homes at nightfall. The age of both the rhyme and the melody, which is a variant of 'Lilliburlero', is uncertain. The words are first found in _Mother Goose's Melody_ (c. 1765) with the footnote, 'This may serve as a Warning to the Proud and Ambitious, who climb so high that they generally fall at last'. Imaginations have been stretched to give the rhyme significance. Gerald Massey in _Ancient Egypt_ suggests that the babe is the child Horus. Joseph Ritson states that the opening phrase of his version, 'Bee baw babby lou, on a tree top', is a corruption of the French nurse's threat in the fable, _He bas! la le loup!_ Gosset says, 'On a tree-top---or green boh (bough)'. Note that boh rhymes with rock, and top fails to do so.' (Boh is a Saxon word.) The authorship has been attributed to a Pilgrim youth who went over in the Mayflower and who was influenced by the way the Red Indian hung his birch-bark cradle on the branch of a tree. It has been said to be 'the first poem produced on American soil' (Book Lover, 1904) Other American authorities, including Metro Goldwin Mayer (1944) have seen it as a lampoon on the British royal line in James II's time. In _The Scots Musical Museum_ (1797) appears a nursery song 'O can ye sew cushions?', which Burns submitted. In his second edition of the _Scotish Minstrel_ (1823, IV) R.A. Smith gives, as the second stanza of 'O can ye sew cushions?': I biggit the cradle on the tree top, And the wind it did blow, and the cradle did rock, And hee and baw, birdie, &c. and William Stenhouse produced a similar second verse to the song in 1839. This seems to be another hint that long ago, in Britain, as in other countries, cradles were rocked by wind power. (Cf. also the 1915 quote of 'Bye, baby bunting'.) -------- None of this, Jon, seems to preclude our interpretation---which may be the original composer's 'riddling' intent. Best, Judy 2008/12/26 Jon Corelis <[log in to unmask]> > Rock-a-bye baby in the tree top > When the wind blows, the cradle will rock > When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall > And down will come baby, cradle and all > > My interpretation of this is that it's a symbolic recalling (not > exactly a memory) of the birth process: the tree is the mother's > body, the cradle is the placenta, rocked by the wind that's the > movement of the mother's breath; when the bough (water) breaks, the > baby and placenta are born. An absurd interpretation, some will say, > but dream logic is always absurd. I arrived at this idea > independently, but I wouldn't be surprised if some > psychoanalytic-minded author has also suggested it. > > > -- > =============================================== > > Jon Corelis http://jcorelis.googlepages.com/joncorelis > > =============================================== >