Blok wrote a little cycle, consisting of three poems, entitled "Mary" (1908). It was inspired by Pushkin's poem "I'm drinking to health of Mary" (1830)[...] the heroine of Pushkin's Poltava [...] is Maria[...]The culmination of this poem is the description of the Poltava battle (in which much blood, Russian and Swedish, was spilled).[...]

JM: VN LIST ARCHIVES

4 Nov 2006 16:41:45 -0200 #69
Mary Mary quite contrary,/How does your garden grow?/ With silver bells and cockle shells/And pretty maids all in a row.

The associative mood can become deadly. These lines, recited for and by minute Brits and after following a google-link, led me to Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary ( already discussed at our list in relation to "Ada").

The silver bells and cockle shells referred to were colloquialisms for instruments of torture.
The 'silver bells' were thumbscrews which crushed the thumb between two hard surfaces by the tightening of a screw. The 'cockleshells' were believed to be instruments of torture which were attached to the genitals!
The mechanical instrument (now known as the guillotine) was called the Maiden - shortened to Maids in the Mary Mary Rhyme.

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