What plague represents the song: Ring around the Rosies?

Answer 1

The Black Death. It hit England in 1665-6 just before the Great Fire of London in 1666. 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.

But the plague started three centuries earlier:

The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, was a devastating pandemic that first struck Europe in the mid-late-14th century (1347–1351), killing between a third and two-thirds of Europe's population. Almost simultaneous epidemics occurred across large portions of Asia and the Middle East during the same period, indicating that the European outbreak was actually part of a multi-regional pandemic.

Including Middle Eastern lands, India and China, the Black Death killed at least 75 million people. The same disease is thought to have returned to Europe every generation with varying degrees of intensity and fatality until the 1700s. Notable later outbreaks include the Italian Plague of 1629-1631, the Great Plague of London (1665–1666), the Great Plague of Vienna (1679), the Great Plague of Marseilles in 1720–1722 and the 1771 plague in Moscow. There is some controversy over the identity of the disease, but in its virulent form the disease appears to have disappeared from Europe in the 18th century.

Bubonic plague survives in other parts of the world (Central and Oriental Africa, Madagascar, Asia, some parts of South America) and was responsible for a pandemic in the early 20th century.

The Black Death had a drastic effect on Europe's population, irrevocably changing Europe's social structure. It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church, Europe's predominant religious institution at the time, and resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews, Muslims, foreigners, beggars and lepers. The uncertainty of daily survival created a general mood of morbidity influencing people to live for the moment, as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353).

THE LYRICS

"Atishoo Atishoo" reflects the fact that violent sneezing was one of the symptoms of someone carrying the disease.

"All fall down" evokes pepple keeling over on the street from the plague, its effect was that sudden. Poor sewage and sanitation facilities in the streets of cities did not help, of course.

A "pocket full of posies" were the nosegays used to try to ward off the smell of the decomposing bodies left to rot in the streets. 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 symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy).

Corpses were not buried promptly, partly because a lot of people died in a short period of time, and partly because those who handled the corpses were likely to succumb to the Black Death themselves. So it was not popular work.

It is believed the plague was carried by rats, and came to London via the ships that docked there, whose cargoes attracted rats, which were riddled with the plague, in foreign ports.

CHILDHOOD INNCOENCE?

Another not-so-innocent children's rhyme is Three Blind Mice. This refers to Bloody Mary, the farmer's wife in the tale, the nickname of Queen Mary I, the Catholic daughter of Henry VIII, who had broken with the Church of Rome and made England a Protestant country.

On becoming Queen, Mary persecuted Protestants, She is called a "farmer's wife" because of the large estates owned by her and her husband, King Philip II of Spain.

The mice in the rhyme may refer to Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer, three Anglican bishops convicted of plotting against the Queen. They were subsequently burned at the stake.

Bloody Mary is also featured and satirised in the nursery rhyme "Mary Mary, Quite Contrary".

Answer 2

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.

the bubonic plague

Answer 3

Of course not. Non of the symptoms supposedly described in the song bare any resemblance to Bubonic plague. Sounds more like a song about ringworm combined with hayfever.

Answer 4

Yes the black pleague is where ring around the rosies came from

Answer 5

The bubonic plague back in the dark ages.

Answer 6

A big thank you to the person who pointed out this is an urban legend. Snopes is great site for debunking a lot of commonly held myths and should be viewed by more people.

Answer 7

its supposed to be the black plague but its also a myth.

Answer 8

the black plague, and that song is so sick! and those innocent children who sing it and dont realize the meaning

Answer 9

black plague or bubonic plague

Answer 10

Apparently it actually does not refer to any disease. It's an urban legend.