I always knew the rhyme sounded a tad morbid but never knew the history behind it:
The children's famous rhyme,'Ring around the Rosie' was actually a small story based on fact. Back when the 'Black (Bubonic) Plague' was around, a ring would appear around the rosey part of the actually boil-like spot, hence 'Ring around the rosey.'
People smelled very badly when having this disease , so they carried posies (type of flower) in their pockets to camouflage the smell, hence 'Pocket full of posies.'
When the people died, because the plague was contagious, they would burn the corpses to ashes, hence 'Ashes, ashes'
'We all fall down.' was added because no one was surviving.
Source: http://www.funtrivia.com
7 comments:
I LOVE information like this! Let me know when you find out what "I'll be a monkeys uncle" means!
I have trained Jooj to ring on her own--I just sing from the couch while she spins and falls down.
welcome Hen-- I'll be sure to let you know. ;-)
Yennifer-- I was so happy to hear that the Jooj kept the family tradition alive ( of stealing all the other kids food at nursery) Let's give the kids one churro at Disneyland and watch them duke it out. We could take it over to Tom Sawyer's Island.
hehe I'm slightly kidding. ;-)
Am I bad because I am fine with both of those things?
...do you have any info on Rock-a-bye-baby? I was singing this the other day to Kalea as she rocked her "babies" ....and realized... I had no idea what the crap I was singing. ...down will come baby cradle and all... what's she doing in the tree anyway?
hahahahha I always think that about Rock a bye baby too!! Gotta find out the story on that one!
Tia- Bring on the baby wrestling!! WWF NURSERY!!!!!!! ;-)
Can I be a total and complete nerd?
I mean, seriously nerdy?
While popular folklore has held that ring a round the rosy was about the fall out from the black plague, there is actually little evidence for that. There is stronger evidence, according to this book on the subject, that the rhyme was a way to get around the puritan church authorities in England's ban on dancing. Children could get around it by making it a game.
The rhyme doesn't actually come into existance until more than a 100 years after the final black death. Of course, the black death was so firmly rooted in the European psyche by that time that it's difficult to say "no" or "yes" to the origin. It could be either.
If you really like this topic, you should listen to this radio show with the above author as he discusses a whole bunch of rhymes.
Thanks, I'm done being Nerdy. Your friendly neighborhood Historian waving you out.
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