All this talk about "sanitizing history" (which has been covered before on other threads) suddenly makes me think: what exactly are people referring to?

It's one thing to say that "Little Sir Hugh" is a historical artifact that shouldn't be bowdlerized. That's my position, but my position also is that it shouldn't be sung, except as a classroom illustration of antisemitism. Nor should "Little Mary Phagan."

I get the impression, however, that some of the "sanitizing of history" people may be objecting to may not be in the song itself.

Does anyone who actually *likes* the song believe that medieval Jews killed Christian children for their blood? Maybe no one here, but....

OTOH, knowledge of pogroms and the Holocaust has become so weakened that most singers may just think of it as a fun Halloween song that happens to have a Jew in it.

They're wrong.