Does anybody really know what the Ring Around The Rosy Song is truly about?

Question

Ten points goes to the best answer with most detail.....

Answer 1

Whenever children join hands in a circle, they sing this song of posies. The origin of this rose-colored ditty is something far more sinister — the Great Plague that swept through Europe in the 1600s. A rosy rash is the first symptom of the plague. The posies are herbs and spices carried to sweeten the air. The “a-tishoo” sneezing is another fatal symptom. (Later versions replace the sneezing with “ashes” from the cleansing bonfires.) When children fall down on the last line of this rhyme, they are unknowingly acting out their ancestors’ disease.

In the final stages of the plague, just prior to death, the aviolae sacs in the lungs rupture and the lungs begin to be coated with blood, which then clots and dries. Right before the poor victim expires, they will often have a prolonged coughing fit during which they (hang onto your lunch here)... cough up flecks and particles of the dried “black”-appearing blood from their lungs. This was given the name “ashes” by the doctors of the time, who had no idea of how the lungs worked and no way to analyze the “ashes” that seemed to spew from the dying patients' mouths and define them as a blood product.

Answer 2

Origins of "Ring around the rosy" in English History

Connections to the Bubonic Plague (Black Death)?
The words to the Ring around the rosy children's ring game have their origin in English history . The historical period dates back to the Great Plague of London in 1665 (bubonic plague) or even before when the first outbreak of the Plague hit England in the 1300's. The symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy). Pockets and pouches were filled with sweet smelling herbs ( or posies) which were carried due to the belief that the disease was transmitted by bad smells. The term "Ashes Ashes" refers to the cremation of the dead bodies! The death rate was over 60% and the plague was only halted by the Great Fire of London in 1666 which killed the rats which carried the disease which was transmitting via water sources. The English version of "Ring around the rosy" replaces Ashes with (A-tishoo, A-tishoo) as violent sneezing was another symptom of the disease.

Answer 3

Claim: The nursery rhyme 'Ring Around the Rosie' is a coded reference to the Black Plague.

Status: False.

Origins: If "few people realize" that "this seemingly happy little nursery rhyme actually refers" to the Black Plague, so much the better, because the explanation presented above is nonsense. "Ring Around the Rosie" is simply a nursery rhyme of indefinite origin and no specific meaning, and someone, long after the fact, concocted an inventive "explanation" for its creation.

The "Black Plague" was the disease we call bubonic plague, spread by a bacillus usually carried by rodents and transmitted to humans by fleas. The plague first hit western Europe in 1347, and by 1350 it had killed nearly a third of the population. Although some of the details of the plague offered in this putative "Ring Around the Rosie" explanation are reasonably accurate (sneezing was one of the symptoms of a form of the plague, for example, and some people did use flowers, incense, and perfumed oils to try to ward off the disease), the notion that they were behind the creation of this nursery rhyme is extremely implausible for a number of reasons:
# Although folklorists have been collecting and setting down in print bits of oral tradition such as nursery rhymes and fairy tales for hundreds of years, the earliest print appearance of "Ring Around the Rosie" did not occur until the publication of Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose or The Old Nursery Rhymes in 1881. For the "plague" explanation of "Ring Around the Rosie" to be true, we have to believe that children were reciting this nursery rhyme continuously for over five centuries, yet not one person in that five hundred year span found it popular enough to merit writing it down. (How anyone could credibly assert that a rhyme which didn't appear in print until 1881 actually "began about 1347" is a mystery. If the rhyme were really this old, then "Ring Around the Rosie" antedates even Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and therefore we would have examples of this rhyme in Middle English as well as Modern English forms.)

# "Ring Around the Rosie" has many different variant forms which omit some of the "plague" references or clearly have nothing whatsoever to do with death or disease. For example, versions published by William Wells Newell in 1883:

Ring a ring a rosie,
A bottle full of posie,
All the girls in our town,
Ring for little Josie.

Round the ring of roses,
Pots full of posies,
The one stoops the last
Shall tell whom she loves the best.

Answer 4

Ring Around the Rosy," a common childhood song and dance, is really about one of the deadliest epidemics in all of history — the Bubonic Plague. It claimed millions of victims.

The opening words, "Ring around the rosy," represent the skin lesion associated with the disease that appears as a bright red, or rosy, ulcerated spot surrounded by a ring.

The next line, "Pocket full of posies," has superstitious origins. Physicians used to carry scented herbs and flowers – usually posies – in front of their noses in an attempt to ward off the plague. Traditional 17th century London physicians wore long robes and a long beaked mask with posies stuffed inside.

The final verse, "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down," symbolizes death by the plague

Answer 5

The Great Plague of 1665.

Ring a Ring a Roses - describes the rash that accompanied the plague

A pocket full of posies - people would wear flowers to hide the stench of death and to potentially help ward off the illness

Atishoo, Atishoo - the fever

We all fall down - this describes death.

Answer 6

It pertains to the physical signs a person would get on their body when they caught the plague. Ring around the rosy - the blemish you would get which looked like a rose with a ring around it, pockets full of posy's which referred to the posies the doctors would carry around. (superstition) and would keep in front of their noses (sometimes in a beak like mask they would wear. Ashes, ashes we all fall down, simply meant death. Creepy that this would be a nursery rhyme.

Marc B

Answer 7

It tells a twisted story of life in the times of the Bubonic Plague.

Ring around the rosy - symptoms included spots or rings

Pocket full of posies - pockets of flowers to cover up the stench

ashes, ashes we all fall down - death and decay.

Answer 8

It's a rhyme about the plague. Ring around the rosy means a rash around a red bump. Pocket full of posey peans flowers in your pocket to protect you against the plague. Ashes Ashes means the burning of the dead. And we all fall down... you can guess what that signifies.

Answer 9

It's about the Black Plague that struck during the Dark Ages.

"Ring around the Rosey"--the way the rash attacked
"Pocket full of Posey"--I think something that was put into the pockets to ward off the disease.
"Ashes, Ashes,"--the burning of the dead bodies
"We all fall down"--dropping dead

Answer 10

Children created the song during the black plague.The dead could not be burned quick enough Ashes to Ashes we all fall down.