Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part II of a three part pancocojams series about the "Ring Around The Rosie" children's rhymes and singing games.
This post documents various pre-February 2005* versions of "Ring Around The Rosie." (*This date is prior to the launch of YouTube on the internet.)
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/08/debunking-belief-that-ring-around-rosie.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. .That post debunks the theories that these rhymes and singing games have anything to do with the plague.
Click __ for Part III of this pancocojams series. That post showcases some YouTube videos of "Ring Around The Rosie" or similar titles.
The content of this post is presented for historical and folkloric purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
****
PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
This pancocojams series on "Ring Around The Rosie" departs somewhat from the mission of this pancocojams blog which is to document and share examples of African American culture and other Black cultures around the world.
The words and/or performance activities of a number of early examples of many of the children's rhymes, singing games, and cheers that are showcased on pancocojams definitely or likely were created by Black people. However, other early examples of children's rhymes, singing games, and cheers that are found in this blog- such as early examples of "Ring Around The Rosie" likely or definitely weren't created by Black people.
As is the case with all of the rhymes and singing games that have been featured in this pancocojams blog, I'm focusing on "Ring Around The Rosie" because I'm interested in its history, and its folklore-particularly how it has changed overtime. Also, as is the case with all rhymes and singing games (and cheers) that are featured in this pancocojams blog, I'm interested in documenting socio-cultural information about those examples, and exploring the socio-cultural implications of those examples.
****
VERSIONS OF "RING AROUND THE ROSIE" AND SIMILAR TITLES
These sources are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.
Source #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_a_Ring_o%27_Roses
" "Ring a Ring o' Roses", also known as "Ring a Ring o' Rosie" or "Ring Around the Rosie", is a nursery rhyme, folk song, and playground game. Descriptions first appeared in the mid-19th century, though it is reported to date from decades earlier. Similar rhymes are known across Europe, with varying lyrics. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7925.
[...]
Common British versions include:
Ring-a-ring o' roses,
A pocket full of posies.
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down![2]
Common American versions include:
Ring around the rosie,
A pocket full of posies.
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down![2]
[...]
Early attestation
American children playing the game, illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith in The Little Mother Goose (1912)
Variations, corruptions, and adaptations of the rhyme have been noted to exist long before its earliest printed versions. One such variation was recorded as being used in Connecticut in the 1840s.[7] A novel from 1855, The Old Homestead by Ann S. Stephens, includes the following version:
A ring – a ring of roses,
Laps full of posies;
Awake – awake!
Now come and make
A ring – a ring of roses.[8]
Another early record of the rhyme appears in Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes (1881):
Ring-a-ring-a-roses,
A pocket full of posies;
Hush! hush! hush! hush!
We're all tumbled down.[9]
In his Games and Songs of American Children (1883), William Wells Newell describes several variants, including one with a melody that he dates to around 1790 in New Bedford, Massachusetts:
Ring a ring a Rosie,
A bottle full of posie,
All the girls in our town
Ring for little Josie.[7]
Newell notes that "[a]t the end of the words the
children suddenly stoop, and the last to get down undergoes some penalty, or
has to take the place of the child in the centre, who represents the 'rosie'
(rose-tree; French, rosier)."[7] In an 1846 article from the Brooklyn
Eagle, a different version of the game called Ring o' Roses is described. In
this version, a group of young children forms a ring, from which a boy selects
a girl and kisses her.[10]
An 1883 collection of Shropshire folklore includes the following version:
A ring, a ring o' roses,
A pocket-full o' posies;
One for Jack and one for Jim and one for little Moses!
A-tisha! a-tisha! a-tisha![11]
****
Source #2- https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=21219 [Pancocojams Editor: There are several titles for this discussion thread on "Ring Around The Roses."].
1. Subject: Ring around the rosy
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 May 00 - 05:45 PM
Ring-a-ring o' roses,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down.
The words of this little ring-song seem to be becoming
standardized though this was not so a hundred years ago when Lady Gomme was
collecting (ante 1898). Of the twelve versions she gathered only one was
similar to the above. Although 'Ring-a-ring o' roses' is now one of the most
popular nursery games - the song which instantly rises from the lips of small
children whenever they join hands in a circle - the words were not known to
Halliwell, and have not been found in children's literature before 1881. Newell,
however, says that,
Ring a ring a rosie,
A bottle full of posie,
All the girls in our town,
Ring for little Josie,
was current to the familiar tune in New Bedford,
Massachusetts, about 1790. The 'A-tishoo' is notably absent here, as it is also
in other versions he gives, in which the players squat or stoop rather than
fall down:
Round the ring of roses,
Pots full of posies,
The one who stoops last
Shall tell whom she loves best.
The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern English
versions has given would-be origin finders the opportunity to say that the
rhyme dates back to the days of the Great Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was
a symptom of the plague, posies of herbs were carried as protection, sneezing
was a final fatal symptom, and 'all fall down' was exactly what happened. It
would be more delightful to recall the old belief that gifted children had the
power to laugh roses (Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie). The foreign and
nineteenth-century versions seem to show that the fall was originally a curtsy
or other gracious movement of a ring game (see I. and P. Opie, The Singing
Game). A sequel rhyme which enabled the players to rise to their feet again was
in vogue in the 1940s:
The cows are in the meadow
Lying fast asleep,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all get up again."
2.
From: alison
Date: 09 May 00 - 12:13 AM
| "My kids sing this second verse the cows are in the meadows
Ashes in the sea Up we jump with a 1-2-3"
Ring-a-ring-a-roses A pocketful of posies Atishoo, atishoo, We all fall down. Fishes in the water, Fishes in the sea, We all jump up With a one-two-three! Methinks most 'regional variations' can be ascribed to 'Chinese Whispers'!!" **
The cows are in the meadow Eating all the daisies Thunder, lighting We all stand up."... |
****
Source #3 - https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672&messages=214&page=1
[Numbers are added for referencing purposes only,]
1. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 05:48 PM
..."A version from Lomax and Lomax, 1939 Southern States Collecting Trip, from Wiergate, Texas:
Ring around a rosey, pocket full o' posies,
Light bread, Sweet bread, Squat!
Guess who she told me, tralalalala,
Mister Red was her lover, tralalalala,
If you love him, hug him!
If you hate him, stomp!
(Sec. 13, Merryville, LA and vicinity)
**
2. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,Bagpuss
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 06:07 AM
Down at the bottom of the deep blue sea
Catching fishies for my tea
By a one, by a two by a three
At the count of three everyone stood up and lifted the
smaller children playing into the air.
Is this just a local thing (NE England), or did others have
this ending too? Anyone know where it comes from/what it means?"
**
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672&messages=214&page=2
[Pancocojams Editor: Most of the comments on that page are about the possible connection between "Ring Around The Rosies" and the plague.]
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672&page=3
3. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,jonilog
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 05:53 AM
"
Ring a ring a Roses a cup a cup o' shell
The dogs away tae Hamilton tae buy a new bell
If ye cannae tak it I'll tak it tae mysel
A ring a ring a rosies a cup a cup o' shell
Don't ask me what it means ,I haven't a clue either. Its
also the version my wife remembers from her childhood. We probably never heard
the well known version till the introduction of television in the fifties."
**
4.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 11:21 PM
"
Ring a ring a rosie,
A bottle full of posie,
All the girls in our town,
Ring for little Josie.
Published 1883:
Round the ring of roses,
Pots full of posies,
The one who stoops last
Shall tell whom she loves best.
Also published 1883:
Ring around the rosie,
Squat among the posies,
Ring around the roses,
Pockets full of posies,
One, two, three- *squat!
(this one still used in Georgia in the 1930s. "Last one
squats will be old Josie" is the end of one from Texas. Also see the one
from Switzerland)
1840s, acc. to W. W. Newell:
A ring, a ring, a raney
Buttermilk and tansy,
Flower here and flower there,
And all- squat!
The above all from W. W. Newell, Games and Songs of American
Children, 1883, (1903), Dover reprint.
Now a few from the other side; from the Opies, "The
Singing Game."
1880s, Lancashire:
A ring, a ring o'roses
A *pocket full o' posies- *or bottle
Atch chew! atch chew!
1881, Greenaway, Mother Goose:
Ring-a ring-a-roses,
A pocket full of posies;
Hush~ hush! hush! hush!
We're all tumbled down
Shropshire, 1883:
A ring, a ring o' roses,
A pocket full o' posies,
One for Jack and one for Jim
And one for Little Moses!
A curchey in, and a curchey out,
And a curchey all together.
(Children curtsey at end. See the Italian one)
ca. 1900, Italy:
Gira, gira, rosa,
Co la più: bela in mezo,
Gira un bel giardino,
Un altro pochetino;
Un salterelo,
Un altro de più belo;
Una riverenza,
Un'altra per penitenza;
Un baso a chi ti vol.
---
Ring a ring a roses
With the most beautiful in the middle;
Ring a pretty garden,
Another circle round,
A little skip,
Another even better,
A curtsy,
Another for penitence;
A kiss for the one you like.
1857, Switzerland:
Ring-a, ring-a, row,
The children go into the greenwood,
They dance around the rosebush
And all *squat down.
Above all from Iona and Peter Opis, 1985," pp. 219-227,
"The Singing Game.""...
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor: I added the bold font to highlight these dates and places.
****
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672&messages=214&page=4
5. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Jan 05 - 11:37 PM
"This happy little game could be related to "Merry-ma-tansie," the marriage game in Scotland- "a happy wedding song" as Lighter insists. One of the verses is-
Twice about and then we fall,
Then we fall, then we fall,
Twice about and then we fall,
Around the merry-ma-tansie.
An old variant in America-
A ring, a ring, a ransy,
Buttermilk and tansy,
Flower here and flower there,
And all- squat! "...
**
6. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 08 - 10:56 AM
[...]
I'll share some additional thoughts about the possible connections between some "Ring Around The Rosie" rhymes and the "Sounds of South" version of "Green Sally Up" in my next post to this thread."
**
7. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 08 - 11:34 AM
Ring around a rosey, pocket full o' posies,
Light bread, Sweet bread, Squat!
Guess who she told me, tralalalala,
Mister Red was her lover, tralalalala,
If you love him, hug him!
If you hate him, stomp!
-snip-
Source: Lomax and Lomax, 1939 Southern States Collecting Trip, from Wiergate, Texas: (Sec. 13, Merryville, LA and vicinity)
-snip-
I call this version "Louisiana Ring Around The Rosie" because Lomax and Lomax collected it from Louisiana {LA].
The last two lines of that rhyme remind me of the lines "If you hate it fold your arms/ If you love it clap your hands" in version #1 of "Green Sally Up" as given above. Also, version #1 of "Green Sally Up" and that Louisiana version of "Ring Around The Rosie" both include the word "squat".
Actually, as Q has shared with us in this thread, a number of Southern American versions of "Ring Around The Rosie" include the word "squat".
Here are reposts of two of these examples from Q's post above:
Ring around the rosie,
Squat among the posies,
Ring around the roses,
Pockets full of posies,
One, two, three- *squat!
-snip-
Should this be called "Ring Around The Rosie, Squat} to distinquish it from other Ring Around The Rosie" examples?
A Ring, A Ring, A Raney
A ring, a ring, a raney
Buttermilk and tansy,
Flower here and flower there,
And all- squat!
-snip-
I call this version "A Ring, A Ring, A Raney". I know that ring means circle, but what does "raney" mean?
Both of these examples are from the same source: W. W. Newell, Games and Songs of American Children, 1883, (1903), Dover reprint.
If the African American game song "Green Sally Up" originally had as it's source the British game song "Ring Around The Rosie" ,then it eventually became an entirely different song-as seen by the "Step It Down" version. Of course, any "early" connection between these two game songs is speculation on my part. But I believe that it's worth a thought or two.."...
**
8.Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: GUEST,-Crylo
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 11:02 PM
It seems depending on location we hear the rhyme with different lyrics."
**
9. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 12:42 PM
The 'husha....' part is similar to that of a Greenaway Mother Goose version from England, c. 1881-
Hush! Hush! Hush! Hush!
We're all tumbled down.
See Iona and Peter Opie, 1985, "The Singing Game," Oxford University Press.
**
.Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: GUEST,latecomer
Date: 30 May 10 - 08:39 PM
This may be a bit irrelevant at this point, but I'm not sure
how accurate verses that come after the well-known "Ring around the
rosy" verse are. The one I know of goes:
Cows in the meadow
eating buttercups
ashes, ashes,
we all stand up.
Maybe kids wanted a reason to stand up after they fell down,
and so made up a rhyme for themselves. What other "stand up" verses
have you heard?"
****
This concludes Part II of this pancocojams series.
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