For your information, "Sing a Song of Sixpence" was originally a recruiting song for Blackbeard the Pirate! Here is a link from Snopes about this song that I would recommend reading: http://www.snopes.com/lost/sixpence.asp And here is an exerpt: "Four and twenty blackbirds / Baked in a pie "It was a favorite trick in the sixteenth century to conceal all sorts of surprises in a pie." Buccaneers, too, were fond of surprises, and one of Blackbeard's favorite ruses to lure a ship within boarding range was to make his own vessel (or crew) appear to be in distress, typically by pretending to have been dismasted in a storm or to have sprung a leak below the waterline. Passing ships -- both honest sailors wanting to help and other pirates looking for an easy catch -- would sail in close to offer assistance, whereupon a crew of two dozen heavily-armed seamen dressed in black would board the other vessel (via a boat in darkness or fog, or by simply jumping into the other ship when it came alongside if no other means of surprise attack was possible) to quickly kill or disable as many crew members as possible. Thus the four and twenty "blackbirds" (i.e., Blackbeard's crewmen) "baked in a pie" (i.e., concealed in anticipation of springing a trap)." And this is from Wikipedia about birds in a pie: "It is known that a 16th-century amusement was to place live birds in a pie. An Italian cookbook from 1549 (translated into English in 1598) contained such a recipe: "to make pies so that birds may be alive in them and flie out when it is cut up" " Thought you might find it interesting! Thanks so much for sharing Meadow. I'd heard of the live bird pies before, but never the pirate version. Ye be a good matey! ~ MaryJane

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