Edward Scissorhands Poem

[WaldoMcFroog]

Having sat through Tim Burton's wonderful film the other night, I was surprised when the featurette had Tim Burton saying he'd made the story up. I mentioned to my wife that when I was a child, I had had a book of nonsense poems which I am certain contained one called Edward Scissorhands. The majority were by Edward Lear, but I think there were other authors in there, and I remember Shock Headed Peter being one of them.

Googling for Edward Scissorhands, I can find no reference to this poem and plenty that say Burton made it up. My memory's often flaky, but I'm certain on this. Can anyone shed any light?

[ludwig]

You're probably getting scissorhands mixed up with 'shock headed peter' from Heinrich Hoffman's Struwelpeter cautionary tales for Children. This is the boy who never cut his hair or nails. There is a picture of him in the book, and with his long hair and nails he does look alot like edward scissorhands.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Maybe - you're right about the image being similar. I seem to remember it was something about cutting little boys fingers off with scissors though.

[Golem]

Excuse my self-indulgence here, but I just had to include the truly classic rhyme from Struwwelpeter, as has been previously mentioned. It describes Conrad having his thumbs cut off by a man with scissors because he continues to suck them non-stop.

The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb

One day, Mamma said, "Conrad dear,
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don't suck your thumb while I'm away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys that suck their thumbs.
And ere they dream what he's about
He takes his great sharp scissors
And cuts their thumbs clean off, - and then
You know, they never grow again."

Mamma had scarcely turn'd her back,
The thumb was in, alack! alack!

The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissorman.
Oh! children, see! the tailor's come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.
Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb."

If you ever get the chance go and see the show 'Shock Headed Peter' a musical interpretation of Hoffman's poems by The Tiger-Lilies, I highly, highly recommend it. It's playing in New York at the moment and had two runs in London.

http://www.shockheadedpeter.com

[WaldoMcFroog]

Aha! Not self indulgent at all - that's the poem I half remembered, and maybe it was the fact that he looked like Shock Headed Peter that made me think Edward Scissorhands wasn't orginal. Much obliged both!

[blueeyedlass]

woh !! thats quite a scary poem to people actually read that to their children???