Is Ring- Around -the -Rosey really a song about death?

Question

We teach our children to sing ring around the rosey and I have been getting conflicting answers about the songs origination and meaning.

Answer 1

ring around the rosie (dance around the glowing bonfire)
Pockets full of posies (May flowers picked earlier during the day
as part of the spring equinox festival)
Ashes Ashes (the bonfire is burning out)
we all fall down
(Fires out, dawn is rising, we are very tired have danced around the fire all night, may also be drunk)

My source was a 98 yr old man. His source was his great grandma.

Answer 2

The words to the Ring around the rosy children's ring game can be traced to a rather dark historic time in English history .

The parallel that I have read about that makes the most sense is that this can be traced 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.

Some of the symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy).

17th century Europeans being who they were decided that the best way to fight this was to fill pockets and pouches with sweet smelling herbs ( or posies). These were carried to ward off the disease due to the belief that it 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 - there is another whole story surrounding this, believe me.

The English version of "Ring around the rosy" replaces Ashes with (A-tishoo, A-tishoo) because severe sneezing was another symptom of the disease.

Answer 3

The origin of the song came from the time of the Baubonic Plague, the black death in europe.

The meaning of the lines is as follows

Ring around the rosey refers to the black rings around the red marks that appeared on the body

Pocekts full of Poseys refers to the people carrying flowers around with them to counteract the smell of the dying and the piling bodies and it was believed that the plague was spread through taht foul stench and the sweet smell of flowers, particualrly posey's would offer protection from that.

Ashes, ashes, all fall down. That was a reference to the ashen appearance of people that were sick and how the were literally falling over in the streets with the disease.

Answer 4

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 5

During 1348 and 1350 in England the Black Death was responsible for the death of over 1.5 million people. The Black Death is the name given to a disease called the bubonic plague which was rampant during the Fourteenth Century. In fact, the bubonic plague affected England more than once in that century but its impact on English society from 1348 to 1350 was terrible.

The Black Death was caused by fleas carried by rats that were very common in towns and cities. The fleas bit into their victims literally injecting them with the disease. Death could be very quick for the weaker victims.

It was believe that "standing around roses in circles" people were not affected.

Answer 6

All the parts of ring around the rosey have to do with the Plague/Black Death.

Ring around the Rosey --> when you contracted the Plague you would get sores that looked like roses and their would be a circle around them

Pocket full of Posies --> the stench of the sores would be soo bad that people would put posies in their pockets to mask the smell

Ashes, ashes --> people would put powder on their sores to mask their appearance

We all fall down --> literally you die

I learned this from my Western Civ professor.

Answer 7

ok, you receive some issues blended up, celebration, the black lack of life change into the the call of the ailment that led to the inability of life inspite of the indisputable fact that the time change into noted as the plague and its easily a "achoo" as human beings sneezed and coughed because the black lack of life kills them (I keep in thoughts because we bobbed our head ahead performing if we were sneezing earlier falling down) Any techniques like the first poster suggested it change into to practice the plenty. There are also different the reason why it change right into a fashionable like it had the catchy track, not a good number of folk knew what it meant, and it change into interesting for us when we were youngsters.

Answer 8

Yes, its about how people died from the smallpox.
If you look at the original version, you can see how people died. The ring was around the smallpox people had. Ashes was when they all died and there were too many bodies to burry so they burned them. Posey was a herb that supposingly would keep away the disease. And we all fall down was basically how many people died.

Answer 9

No, this is a myth. As a teacher of critical reasoning (and mythbusting) I use this as one of my examples.

And though I am sure many were TOLD that it is historical, I am also certain that they simply took the word of whomever told them, if we examine the evidence it will seem pretty obvious that this is not likely the case...

FIRST: Most nursery rhymes were created for kids with rhyming/fun in mind... they had no alternative meanings. BE VERY SKEPTICAL of any who claim hidden meanings (it is not impossible, just highly unlikely).

One such example was given above: "Ring around the Rosie" - and its reference to the plague. I gladly challenge anyone to find evidence that supports this claim - there is none other than "it seems to be so". Quite poor evidence to be sure! (and mistaken due to alterations, see third reason below)

SECOND: The earliest record of someone making the plague-relation claim was in 1961; James Leasor's book The Plague and the Fire (and he gives no better evidence than "it seems so").

THIRD: For this rhyme to be historical, it would have had to survive over 500 years in near obscurity, then be written down for the FIRST time (in its supposedly plague reference version) in Kate Greenaway's "Mother Goose" in 1881...

But one BIG problem here is that we don't recite her original version today:

Ring-a-ring o' roses,
A pocket full of posies,
Hush! hush! hush! hush!
We're all tumbled down.

(There are also more verses that hold no plausable reference to a plague)

As a point of interest (but still no better evidence) there is, purportedly, an older version, from 1790, but this one has even fewer plausible interpretations to the plague (see first link).

Of course "absence of evidence is not exactly evidence of absence" but it sure doesn't help. If you wish to purport the plague-reference claim you are required to supply some sort of evidence (any version in print nearer to the actual plague would be a good start), but to date there is nothing of this sort, just our imaginations.

So, this seems more likely a case where we are simply told something and we believe it to be true because it does sound plausable... (another is the whole "sleep tight don't let the bed bugs bite" referring to rope beds - it doesn't). But without ever reviewing the hard evidence (such as printed material), how can we make such claims?

Answer 10

Yes.

A common conjecture is that the rhyme is somehow connected to the Great Plague of London in 1665, or perhaps earlier outbreaks of bubonic plague in England. This story is entirely unsupported by textual sources, as there is no mention of the verses, nor written evidence of their existence, before 1881.

This idea, however, remains entrenched in the imagination of many. Detailed explanations have evolved to explain the different parts of the poem. For example, the first line evokes the round red rash that would break out on the skin of plague victims. The second line's "pocket full of posies" would have been a pocket in the garment of a victim filled with something fragrant, such as flowers that aimed to conceal the smell from the sores and the dying people. A second creative explanation for this line is that it referred to the purported belief that fresh-smelling flowers, nosegays, and pomanders would purify the air around them thus warding off disease. A third possibility includes the idea that "posies" are derived from an Old English word for pus, in which case the pocket would be referring to the swelling sore.

"Ashes, ashes" would refer to when people alive and dead were gathered up into piles and lit on fire in a belief that burning the diseased bodies would not allow the disease to spread. Several alternate endings to the song exist, one being: "atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down", interpreted as invoking the sneezing before "we all fall down", the eventual succumbing to death.

The first time the nursery rhyme was suggested to be plague related seems to be in 1961, James Leasor's book The Plague and the Fire. However, it is not clear whether Leasor concocted the plague interpretation on his own.

The rhyme was first published in Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose or The Old Nursery Rhymes (1881), centuries after the plague swept Europe; and there is no evidence of an earlier version. Further, many early versions of the rhyme omit the lines used to support these references to the plague. The plague connection is considered false by scholars of folklore.

Edit: Many of the nursery rhymes and faerie tales had dark meanings to them to teach children the hazards of the world around them. They've been glossed over and prettied up only during the past fifty years or so.