Sorry about my absence from all this very interesting response.

Firstly, Cinderella - it is one of a group of stories with similar themes which are found in many cultures, going back a good many centuries, many of which involve much more interesting females than the "well-known" version. There are also a lot of film versions. It is very odd that it was not recognised. It is part of the basic roots of literature. For instance, the tale "Cap O'Rushes", which is one British variant, is closely related to King Lear.

Secondly, the shepherd's sock song.

While shepherds washed their socks by night,
All seated round the tub,
A bar of Sunlight soap came down,
And they began to scrub.

Not important of itself, and itself well past its sell-by date in terms of the society it is based in. What it did to me was to remind me how little playground culture there is. In the past, these things were passed on by the children, separately from the adult world, and secretively. Now, any playground activity seems to be rooted in the pop world, and the concept that children can add to culture, produce their own versions, and that this is acceptable, has been lost. This is important. Children who grow up knowing that they can be involved in the creation of song, (and parody is a good way into that) are going to be much more involved in music in adult life. Don't we want that?

Here's another (rather sadly):

We four Beatles of Liverpool are,
George in a taxi, John in a car,
Paul on a scooter, blowing his hooter,
Following Ringo Starr.

Observe the adherence to the rhyme scheme of We Three Kings, and the clever use of Ringo's surname.

We don't have the separation of religion from the state schools in the UK, so we do a lot of Christmas songs - but tend to sing the more interesting modern carols rather than the old basics. The tune used for the parody of the shepherds song is a boring four line one. I suspect that if it had been generally learned to the tune used for "Ilkley Moor" there would have been no sock-washing.

The nostalgia I have is for the way we gathered together at playtime, learning a new song that a girl had brought back from a visit to a friend in another part of the country, and the way we then started to build our own, not the songs themselves.

"The Yellow Rose of Texas,
The man from Laramie,
Went to Davy Crockett's,
To have a cup of tea,
The tea was so delicious,
They had another cup,
And left poor Davy Crockett,
To do the washing up." (This was the incoming one.)

"Say what you will, school dinners make you ill,
And Davy Crockett died of shepherds' pie,
All school din-dins come from pig bins,
Why, O why?" (this one never had a satisfactory ending.)

I'm afraid that modern children may have learned that composition is something done by somebody else.

Penny