Guy Fawkes' Day

The Fifth of November

Remember, remember!     The fifth of November,     The Gunpowder treason and plot;     I know of no reason     Why the Gunpowder treason     Should ever be forgot!  

Guy Fawkes and his companions     Did the scheme contrive,     To blow the King and Parliament     All up alive.

Threescore barrels, laid below,     To prove old England's overthrow.     But, by God's providence, him they catch,     With a dark lantern, lighting a match! A stick and a stake     For King James's sake!     If you won't give me one,     I'll take two,     The better for me,     And the worse for you. Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!     Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!     Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray! I had to delete one verse of this traditional English poem for being too violent but I wanted to show those of you who do not know why England has nationwide bonfires tonight. I also used part of the poem with the TBA kids at library time today. The three verses up to the word "match." What we can rejoice in about the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 is that it was discovered before King James I and his entire government got blown up in the Parliament building. For those of us who use the 1607 King James Version, life might have been far different had the king died in 1605. The kids asked whether that meant the Bible itself would have ceased to exist so I taught them that it was originally written in Greek (and Hebrew) but King James hired the best translators in his kingdom to put it into English. However, who knows how long it would have taken to get it done if the king had died and the religious wars had not started to calm down (did not completely cease at that point). History is fascinating. The kids were more engrossed by this than by Narnia today. One class asked me to find some pictures on my iPad of what the effigies of Guy Fawkes look like that get thrown into the fire tonight. Thankfully I found two handmade ones that were not gruesome to show them!