Deconstructing the Lullaby

I sing to Wren at bedtime. I used to sing "hush little baby, don't you cry" but Wren stopped liking that. Instead, for the past month I have sung The Unicorn. It is almost the only song I remember from listening to as a child. We used to have this record of Des and Dawn Lindberg singing the song and it was memorable but disturbing. Every time I heard it I was sad because the song is about the Flood and explains that the reason we don't see unicorns is that they were disobedient and played in the rain so they missed the ark and all drowned:

"the unicorns was hidin'

playing silling games.

They were kicking' and a splashin

while the rain was pourin'

oh them foolish unicorns."

then later...

"And the unicorns looked up

from the rock and cried.

And the water came up

And sort of floated them away

That's why you've never seen a unicorn to this day."

I started singing the first verse:

"A long time ago

When the Earth was green.."

"What?" said Wren. "How is the earth green. Earth is BROWN! Was the animals eating green earth?"

"No," I explained. "I think they mean that the land had green grass on it. The animals could eat the green grass."

"Oh."

I continued singing until a few lines on:

"The loveliest of all was the Unicorn."

"Why they are singing about a horse with wings when there IS NO HORSE LIKE THAT??"

"Well, um.. they are singing that there was a horse like that but it didn't get on the boat with Noah."

"Oh, but there IS NO HORSE with wings."

"Not now, no."

Then we reached the line "there were green alligators.."

Wren:"Why are alligators green?"

Me: "So they can hide in the green river water to catch animals. They like to be camouflaged."

Song: "There were cats and rats and elephants."

Wren: "wait wait. There are no cats and rats here in the zoo!!"

Me: "It was on Noah's ark. All the animals in the world had to get on."

Song: "The lord said ... stand back, I am gonna make it rain."

Wren: "How is he do that magic. How is he make it just rain?"

Me: He is a god so he can just do that.

Wren: "How is he do it?"

Me: "lets just sing it"

I sang it.

Tonight Wren has a cough. I gave him a homeopathic honey cough syrup and he liked it. I have also given him a pillow for the first time. He is proud of his pillow and showed Daddy when he came in for his lullaby. He is still in there. I wonder if he is being similarly interrogated.