in the old song "RING AROUND THE ROSIE" what does "pocket full of posie" mean? what is posie?

Question

also, ashes, ashes, we all fall down. whats up with that?

Answer 1

posies are flowers, which were carried in order to stave off the bubonic plagure. The signature mark of a ring around a red rash was a sign of the black death.

Answer 2

Every child has happily joined hands with friends and recited the familiar nursery rhyme, "Ring around a rosie, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down." Few people realize to what this seemingly happy little nursery rhyme actually refers.
This nursery rhyme began about 1347 and derives from the not-so-delightful Black Plague, which killed over twenty-five million people in the fourteenth century. The "ring around a rosie" refers to the round, red rash that is the first symptom of the disease. The practice of carrying flowers and placing them around the infected person for protection is described in the phrase, "a pocket full of posies." "Ashes" is a corruption or imitation of the sneezing sounds made by the infected person. Finally, "we all fall down" describes the many dead resulting from the disease.

This is an urban legend and is not TRUE.

Answer 3

John Smith is wrong. Ring around the rosies refers to the red rashes from the bubonic plague. Pocket full of posies refers to the flowers people would keep because they thought if they could smell flowers and sweet smells, that they would not get the plague.

Answer 4

it is not about the plague...

"The more likely explanation is to be found in the religious ban on dancing among many Protestants in the nineteenth century, in Britain as well as here in North America. Adolescents found a way around the dancing ban with what was called in the United States the "play-party." Play-parties consisted of ring games which differed from square dances only in their name and their lack of musical accompaniment. They were hugely popular, and younger children got into the act, too. Some modern nursery games, particularly those which involve rings of children, derive from these play-party games. "Little Sally Saucer" (or "Sally Waters") is one of them, and "Ring Around the Rosie" seems to be another. The rings referred to in the rhymes are literally the rings formed by the playing children. "Ashes, ashes" probably comes from something like "Husha, husha" (another common variant) which refers to stopping the ring and falling silent. And the falling down refers to the jumble of bodies in that ring when they let go of each other and throw themselves into the circle. "
If you read at snopes.com, they go into greater detail as to why it is unlikely it's about the plague. A posy is just a reference to a flower.

Answer 5

flowers, posies are flowers, the whole rhyme is about the plague....you would get rosie sores on your skin that stunk so you would carry flowers to cover the smell, ashes, ashes, means all the bodies were burned to prevent the spread of the disease....

Answer 6

I think posies in this context means little bunches of herbs, carried to ward off plague. The next lines "atishoo atishoo we all fall down" describes sneezing as the first symptom of catching the plague.

Answer 7

I do believe it is an old school word for flowers. The game actually has a pretty interesting history. Check out the link below.