Today is Thanksgiving Day in America, the day the Pilgrim Fathers turned up in the New World on the Mayflower after bolting from England believing that it wasn't holy enough so setting off to make their own country.
They called it the New World but it wasn't new to the natives who already lived there and in a huge showing of tolerance showed the new guys how to grow wheat because they had turned up empty handed except for William Mullins that is who had packed 126 pairs of shoes but no seeds or equipment.
The natives held a great feast for the new arrivals and to this day the Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day but only because an author named Sarah Josepha Hale pushed for it to become a National Event as it had only previously been celebrated in New England.
Sarah Josepha Hale is best known for her nursery Rhyme 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' so what better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than to rewrite her famous lyrics to commemorate both her and the events surrounding Thanksgiving.
Sarah had a little verse
She was Mary's little lamb's author
But she's also best remembered for
Celebrating a reign of death and slaughter
The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock
Where the natives were already living
They showed them how to stay alive
And that's why they celebrate thanksgiving
The Pilgrims thanked them for their feast
In a most ungrateful way
They stole their land and killed them all
Then called it Thanksgiving Day
Thank you Sarah.
2 comments:
If Sarah Joseph's hale had written a better poem I could have done more with it but as it was I was constrained to use the historically correct facts in 3 x 4 line verses.
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