Does anyone know the meaning of the nursery rhyme.........?

Question

"Ring around the rosy,pocket full of posies, ashes to ashes, we all turn to dust." Someone gave me a morbid explanation, waiting to see what others have to say. Hope I got the quote right.

Answer 1

I've heard that it's from the times of the black plague, but that seems to be an urban legend. Here's a link from snopes (pretty reliable source) about what it's supposed to mean, and the truth of what it means.

http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.asp

Answer 2

I've heard two explanations for this. The one that I believe is that the poem is talking about leprosy. Ring around the rosy is describing the early symptoms; the original sore that causes flesh to decay. Thus, the pocket full of posies was to hide the smell of rotting flesh. Lepers' bodies were burned after death to prevent their corpses from being a source of further contamination. The other explanation I heard was pretty much the same, except that the disease in question was the Black Plague. Maybe that's the right answer, I don't know, but I think it's leprosy.

Answer 3

Yes, its a rhyme about the black plague in Europe, a few centuries ago. For a largely ignorant and illiterate population, the rhymes were a way to pass on oral history, although often the meaning got lost in time.
There was a belief that carrying herbal posies could ward off the "evil" that was causing the deaths, which is what the second line refers to.
But I heard it as a slightly different version, which is very common with oral presentations.
"Ring a ring a rosies,
a pocket full of posies,
Atisho, Atisho,
We all fall down."

Answer 4

How about this.... The nursery rhyme "Ring around the Rosey" is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get circular sores ("Ring around the rosey..."), these sores would smell very bad, so common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere(inconspicuously) so that they would cover the smell of the sores ("...a pocket full of posies..."). People who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease("...ashes, ashes, we all fall down!").

Answer 5

It's about bubonic plague, so if that's the morbid explanation you got, they're right! The ring around the rosy refers to the sores, ashes refer to the burning of the bodies and turning to dust speaks for itself.

Answer 6

Well i always sang it:"ring around the rosy a pocket full of posies ashes ashes we all fall down"
i heard that it was talking about the black plague. i guess the ppl back then who had it would get ashy and when they died they fell and they would have rings/rashes or something to that effect. it actually is a rather morbid song, yet interestingly enough we sing it to our children...

Answer 7

It has been a legend for a long time that this is about the bubonic plague, but as referenced above by several well-read people, it is not. The rhyme was actually written centuries later and was not meant to be morbid.

Answer 8

A lot of this old nursery rhymes came from the continent, Germany, Russia and lost some of the original meaning in translation.
Additional, words changed their meaning over hundreds of years.
For instance, London Bridges falling Down, refers to Vikings, who pulled the pillars of a bridge down with chains, but not all rhymes have such clear history.
The original Koran, written 650 years ago, promises for instance 72 raisins, not virgins to the warrior.
So, your rhyme could very well be from the time of the black plague, which killed at its height 60% of Europeans, but most likely came from around the Rhine Valley, in my opinion.

Answer 9

It was about the plague
- the rosy ring is the rash those infected used to get
- those infected with it used to smell horribly, so they would keep posies (or other flowers in their pocket) to ward off the smell
- ashes, ashes, we all fall down - means that when we die we return to ashes

Answer 10

I can't remember were or when or what the disease was called but my grandma explained it to me a coupple yesars back, what i remember from it was somthing like that there was a disease a LONG time ago that cause people to get red rings or rashes or somthing on theyre hands and the decaying bodys smelled bad so people carried roses and flowers since there was no such thing as perfume, and the ashes part is the burning of the bodies

Answer 11

A popular misinterpretation connects the poem with the Great Plague of London in 1665, or perhaps earlier outbreaks of bubonic plague in England; however, there is no evidence that Ring a Ring O'Roses and the plague were connected, until it was proposed in the 20th century.