If you thought that nursery rhymes you learnt in school were all that innocent, you're in for a shock. Or a surprise, depending on how dark your imagination is.

3. Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Rub-a-dub-dub,
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker,
All put out to sea.

No, this isn't a poem about dubstep. (Okay, that was lame. I agree.) The original line of the poem was said to be "three maids in a tub"and the poem is supposed to be actually about peep-shows in fairs where people could pay for some voyeuristic entertainment. Doesn't matter if it's maid or men, the homoerotic actions this alludes to, were pretty much taboo back in those days.

4. Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells
And pretty maids all in a row.

By now you must have realized that some of these nursery rhymes were frustrations of the English people towards their rulers. This one, is perhaps the bloodiest and not surprisingly it's about Queen Mary I of England, whose routine executions of Protestants and fascination with torture techniques earned her the nickname "Bloody Mary". Just so you know, silver bell was a torture device meant to crush someone's thumb and cockleshells were meant for crushing genitals. Ouch!