Is the popular children's song Ring Around The Rosy really about the plague and if so how?

Answer 1

like the dude before me said, it is about the plague.

ring around the rosies references to the red rings that would form around the skin contusions caused by the plague.

pocket full of posies referred to the flowers that everyone carried around to help against the stench of the dead and dying.

ashes ashes, we all fall down referred to the mass cremations and mass number of dead.

How could it not be about the plague? you should read the original fairy tales while your at it. Cinderella's step sisters get their eyes pecked out by crows at her wedding :) All that S**T was heavy.

Answer 2

Yes, and there are very similar songs in other languages which are sang by children who turn around in a circle.
E.g. Spanish song also about the black death

Uno dos y tres y cuatro
el cólera, el cólera
el tifus esenquematico, la fiebre amarilla
çel que la coge la diña

one, two, three and four
the cholera, the cholera
the esenquematic tyfus etc
who ever gets it dies

So independent of what some say these are legends, which supposedly shave some truth to them since legere -legends are based on readings, while myths are not based in truth

peace
Santiago

Answer 3

The song:

Ring Around the rosy
Pocket full of posy
Ashes ashes we all fall down

--The first line mentions the bubonic plague and the rosy rash as one of the symptoms of the disease.

--The second line talks of how some people kept "remedies" close to them because they thought it would cure their disease. During the Black Death, people would stick many clovers in oranges and carry it around with them, thinking that that the disease would not affect them. Another "remedy" was peeled onions, but neither helped them in any way.

--The last line refers to all the people who "fell" to their deaths as a result of the plague.

Answer 4

Yes it is.

Ring around the rosy- referenced the disease

pocket full of posies- putting flowers in their pockets was a way they thought to cure it

ashes ashes, we all fall down. talking about dying

Answer 5

At the time it was made I belive the plague was in england, the dumbed up american version is nothing like the English one where it's says blood, death, and a lot of "bad" things we try to keep youth today from hearing.
=]

Answer 6

I had heard that it was, but I went to snopes.com and checked it out. Here is their explaination.

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

Answer 7

thats a load of crap

Answer 8

apparently that's just a legend that's been debunked.