{"id":59661,"date":"2022-07-03T21:54:43","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T04:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=59661"},"modified":"2022-07-03T21:58:18","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T04:58:18","slug":"is-ring-around-the-rosie-really-about-the-plague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/is-ring-around-the-rosie-really-about-the-plague\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Ring Around the Rosie Really About the Plague?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Most of us are familiar with this classic nursery rhyme, while many of us are also aware with its surprisingly dark origins. While on its face \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d may appear to be just a silly song for children, it is, in fact, a chilling description of the Black Death, the outbreak of Bubonic Plague that wiped out nearly a third of Europe\u2019s population between 1346 and 1353. According to this interpretation, \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d <\/em>describes the rosy red rash that appeared on plague victims, and\u201cPocket Full of Posies\u201d <\/em>the bunches of flowers or fragrant herbs carried by medieval people to ward off the disease. Meanwhile, \u201cAshes! Ashes!\u201d<\/em> –\u00a0 sometimes sung as \u201cA-tishoo! A-tishoo!\u201d<\/em> – refers to either the cremation of dead bodied or the sneezing of the victims, while \u201cWe All Fall Down\u201d <\/em>refers to, well, death. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u2026<\/em>only no, it doesn\u2019t. While countless books, articles, and videos state this dark hidden meaning of \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d as fact, in reality the plague interpretation is only a couple of decades old and has been largely dismissed by folklorists. And while the notion of children innocently dancing and singing about the Black Death might appeal to our macabre imaginations, all evidence points to a far more mundane origin for the song.<\/p>\n

The first strike against the plague interpretation of \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d is the age of the song itself.<\/p>\n

While most sources trace the song\u2019s origin to the Black Death of 1346, others cite the more recent Great Plague of 1665. However, the song in its modern form did not appear in print until 1881 – some 200 or 500 years after its supposed origin – while the earliest recorded versions go back no earlier than the 1790s. If the plague theory is correct, this would mean that the song survived orally for nearly half a millennium before anyone bothered to write it down – a suspiciously unlikely occurrence.<\/p>\n

Another strike against the theory is that the song\u2019s lyrics have varied wildly from place to place and decade to decade. If the lyrics were originally about the plague, then we would expect the earliest versions to contain the same references as the modern-day ones. But this is not the case. The earliest recorded version of the song, printed in Germany in 1796, translates as:<\/p>\n

“A ring, a ring, a round dance,<\/em><\/p>\n

We are the children three,<\/em><\/p>\n

we sit under the elderbush,<\/em><\/p>\n

and all go hush, hush, hush!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>While one of the earliest English-language versions, printed in an 1846 article in the Brooklyn Eagle <\/em>newspaper, <\/em>goes:<\/em><\/p>\n

Ring a ring a Rosie,<\/em><\/p>\n

A bottle full of posie,<\/em><\/p>\n

All the girls in our town<\/em><\/p>\n

Ring for little Josie.<\/em><\/p>\n

Other versions include this one, recorded by American author Ann S. Stephens in her 1855 novel The Old Homestead:<\/em><\/p>\n

A ring \u2013 a ring of roses,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Laps full of posies;<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Awake \u2013 awake!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Now come and make<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0A ring \u2013 a ring of roses.<\/em><\/p>\n

And this one, published by William Wells Newell in 1883:<\/p>\n

Round the ring of roses,<\/em><\/p>\n

Pots full of posies,<\/em><\/p>\n

The one stoops the last<\/em><\/p>\n

Shall tell whom she loves the best.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Even this 1898 variation, collected by Alice Gomme in the Dictionary of British Folklore<\/em>, differs substantially from the \u201cmodern\u201d 1881 version recorded in illustrator Kate Greenway\u2019s Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes:<\/em><\/p>\n

“Ring, a ring o\u2019 roses,<\/em><\/p>\n

A pocket full o\u2019 posies,<\/em><\/p>\n

Up-stairs and down-stairs,<\/em><\/p>\n

In my lady\u2019s chamber \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

Husher! Husher! Cuckoo!”<\/em><\/p>\n

In all these versions, the only common elements are the title \u201cRing of Roses\u201d and the rhyming reference to posies. The following lines differ substantially from the modern version, with \u201cAshes! Ashes!\u201d being either completely absent or variously replaced with nonsense syllables, imitations of sneezing, or alternate constructions like \u201cRed Bird, Blue Bird\u201d<\/em> or \u201cGreen Grass, Yellow Grass\u201d. <\/em>Variations continued to appear well into the 20th Century, with this version being recorded among African-American schoolgirls in Wiergate, Texas in 1939:<\/p>\n

“Ring around a Rosey<\/em><\/p>\n

Pocketful o\u2019 posies<\/em><\/p>\n

Light bread, sweet bread, squat!<\/em><\/p>\n

Guess who she told me, tralalalala<\/em><\/p>\n

Mr. Red was her lover, tralalalala<\/em><\/p>\n

If you love him, hug him!<\/em><\/p>\n

If you hate him, stomp!”<\/em><\/p>\n

Given how dramatically these lyrics evolved over only 100 years, it is unlikely they would have survived unchanged from the time of the Great Plagues to the present day. And even we accept that the modern lyrics do indeed refer to the plague, they do a remarkably bad job describing the actual pandemic. Firstly, while people in the Middle Ages did indeed carry around flowers, spices, and other fragrant substances to ward off the \u201cbad air\u201d thought to spread the disease, the fact that earlier versions of the song refer to \u201cpots\u201d or \u201claps\u201d full of posies makes this connection tenuous at best. Second, while the theory claims that the titular \u201cring of roses\u201d refers to a ring-shaped rash characteristic of the plague, this is in fact a very rare symptom – as is the sneezing supposedly depicted in the line \u201cA-tishoo! A-tishoo!\u201d In fact, coughing and sneezing are more common to the pneumonic <\/em>form of the disease – in which the Yersinia Pestis <\/em>bacterium infects the lungs – than the flea-borne bubonic <\/em>variety. Third, contrary to the \u201cAshes! Ashes!\u201d line, plague victims weren\u2019t ever cremated – they were always buried. Indeed, the Catholic Church considered cremation sacrilegious, as it denied the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement. In fact, the first modern cremation in Britain did not take place until 1884, while the Catholic Church did not lift its ban on cremation until 1963. And finally, while the final line, \u201cWe all fall down,\u201d appears to be a straightforward reference to dying, many versions of the song, like this one from 1883, don\u2019t reference falling at all but instead a \u201ccurchey\u201d or \u201ccurtsey\u201d to be performed by the singers:<\/p>\n

“A ring, a ring o\u2019roses<\/em><\/p>\n

A pocket full of posies<\/em><\/p>\n

One for Jack and one for Jim and one for little Moses<\/em><\/p>\n

A curchey in and a curchey out<\/em><\/p>\n

And a curchey all together”<\/em><\/p>\n

These many inconsistencies make it unlikely that \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d was ever <\/em>about the plague. Indeed, despite its popularity, the plague theory is a remarkably recent one. The first work to make the discordant connection between the innocent nursery rhyme and disaster was a 1949 article in the newspaper The Observer,<\/em> which included a nuclear-themed parody version:<\/p>\n

“Ring-a-ring-o’-<\/em>geranium<\/em><\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

A pocket full of <\/em>uranium<\/em><\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

Hiro, shima<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

All fall down!”<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1951, folklorists and nursery rhyme experts Iona and Peter Opie acknowledged the widespread belief that the song was about the plague, but dismissed the theory as dubious, later complaining that:\u00a0 \u201cWe ourselves have had to listen so often to this interpretation we are reluctant to go out of the house.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

However, the first known work to state the theory as fact is James Leasor\u2019s book The Plague and the Fire, <\/em>published a full decade later in 1961. From there, the theory spread like, well, the plague, until it became accepted as fact. But as critics of the theory point out, if the hidden meaning of the song was known for over 500 years, why did it take until the mid-20th Century for anyone to write it down? Most folklorists have thus dismissed the plague interpretation as a folk etymology, and have concluded that the song likely originated in 18th Century Germany and spread to England, the United States, and elsewhere via German immigrants.<\/p>\n

So if not the plague, then what is the song actually<\/em> about? According to folklorist Philip Hiscock, \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d is part of a long tradition of children\u2019s play songs intended to get around Protestant religious bans on dancing:<\/p>\n

\u201cAdolescents found a way around the dancing ban with what was called in the United States the \u201cplay-party.\u201d 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. \u201cLittle Sally Saucer\u201d (or \u201cSally Waters\u201d) is one of them, and \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d seems to be another. The rings referred to in the rhymes are literally the rings formed by the playing children. \u201cAshes, ashes\u201d probably comes from something like \u201cHusha, husha\u201d (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.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>As with the lyrics of the song, the rules of these \u201cplay parties\u201d varied widely. In nearly every variation, the last person to fall down, bow, or curtsey had to pay some kind of penalty. In some versions this involved hugging or kissing another member of the group, while in others the loser moved to the centre of the circle to become the \u201cRosie\u201d around which the others danced. The name \u201cRosie\u201d is believed to derive from the French rosier [\u201crose-yay\u201d] <\/em>or \u201crosebush,\u201d while the game itself likely derives from ancient pagan rituals that involved dancing in circles around sacred trees or bonfires – and for more on this, please check out our video That Time British Witches Tried to Stop a Nazi Invasion Using Magic.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>But what do the other lyrics of the song mean? In a word, nothing. <\/em>While some classic nursery rhymes like \u201cOld King Cole\u201d are known to be based on historical figures and events, others are simply fun rhyming nonsense for children to dance and play to. As far as folklorists and etymologists have been able to determine, \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d is one of the latter, and likely has no literal meaning at all. But we humans abhor ambiguity and randomness, leading us to seek out logic and meaning where none exists. This rationalizing instinct has resulted in countless dubious theories seeking to explain the origins of nursery rhymes, including this one:<\/p>\n

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,<\/em><\/p>\n

How does your garden grow?<\/em><\/p>\n

With silver bells, and cockle shells,<\/em><\/p>\n

And pretty maids all in a row.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>One interpretation holds that the \u201cMary, quite contrary\u201d of the rhyme is none other than Queen Mary I, who attempted to convert England back to Catholicism between 1553 and 1558. According to this theory, \u201cHow does your garden grow?\u201d and \u201cSilver bells and cockle shells\u201d refer to Mary\u2019s inability to bear a child, while \u201cPretty maids in a row\u201d is a derogatory reference to catholic nuns. However, there is no evidence whatsoever for this particular interpretation, and the actual origin of the song remains unknown.<\/p>\n

Not even contemporary works are immune from such over-analysis. Gallons of ink have been spilled explaining how L. Frank Baum\u2019s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz <\/em>is in fact a cleverly-disguised allegory for populism even U.S. monetary policy, while a common urban legend holds that Phil Collins\u2019s 1981 hit song In the Air Tonight <\/em>is actually about an incident Collins witnessed where a man failed to save a drowning victim. Indeed, the Beatles became so frustrated with people trying to find hidden meanings in their lyrics that John Lennon and Paul McCartney intentionally wrote 1967\u2019s I Am the Walrus <\/em>to be as nonsensical and meaningless as possible, with Lennon allegedly remarking: \u201cLet the f***ers work <\/em>that<\/u> one out!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Intriguingly, the plague interpretation of \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d has taken on a life of its own, becoming what folklorists call meta-folklore<\/em> – folklore about<\/em> folklore. Despite being thoroughly debunked by folklorists, the theory has nonetheless persisted, satisfying as it does both our desire for rational explanations and our love of the ironic and the macabre. And like regular folklore, it has evolved over time, growing and changing with each retelling, and branched off into numerous distinct variations. As mentioned before, some versions of the theory trace the song\u2019s origins to the Black Death of 1346, others to the Great Plague of 1665. Similarly, some versions say song originated in London, while others say it came from Eyam, a village in the English Midlands hard-hit by the 1665 Plague. Some versions even claim that the children of Eyam sang the song while dancing around the bodies of the victims! But the one thing all these theories have in common is that they are all patently false. After all, as Sigmund Freud might have put it, sometimes a nursery rhyme is just a nursery rhyme.<\/p>\n

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