Ho Hum Harry
If I was a maid
I’d never marry
But since I’m not
I’m no way sorry

This was an apparently meaningless rhyme that my wife Sile’s mother used to mouth as she set about some repetitive house work.
Such is the mindless rhythm of the words that I have heard Sile herself copy her mother exactly and chant it as a sort of semi-exasperated mantra when starting a routine chore.
I must confess that up to a few years ago, having heard it hundreds of times, I assumed it to be a meaningless jumble of words.
Then one day it stopped me in my tracks.
It does make perfect sense.
It is actually a peon of praise to the joys of female sexuality.
All you have to do is realise that the word maid, up to comparatively recently, meant not domestic help but a virgin.
Substituting the word virgin for maid suddenly changes the whole meaning of the words (and ruins the scansion.)
Then it becomes the song of a married woman extolling the joys which come with the loss of maidenhood.
It is just as well that my mother-in-law never understood what she was saying,
…or then again maybe she did.