Two Videos Of New Jersey Church Choir March Arounds & A Description Of That Church Custom That I Observed in New Jersey In 2019

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is a complete reprint of Part III of a three part 2019 pancocojams series about Black church choir "march arounds" during the church service. That post is still available on this blog and has no comments as of August 25, 2026, the date this post is being published.

This post showcases two videos of what I refer to as "march arounds" by the choir of First United Tabernacle International Ministries' (Orange, New Jersey).

Selected comments from the discussion threads of these two videos are also included in this post. (Note that a commenter in one of those discussion threads identified the pastor of that church is a Jamaican).

This post presents information about Jamaicans in the United States and includes a description of a church choir "march around" that I observed in Pleasantville, New Jersey (near Atlantic City) on March 10, 2019.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/03/five-videos-of-jamaican-church-choirs.html for Part I of this series. Part I showcases several videos of Jamaican church choirs marching around their sanctuary during church service. Selected comments from some of the discussion threads of these videos are also included in this post.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/03/video-of-black-canadian-church-choir.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. Part II provides some information about Jamaicans in Canada and showcases a video of a Black Canadian church choir marching around the sanctuary during a church service for that church's collection. Selected comments from that video's discussion thread are also included in this post. A number of those comments note that this "march around" style is from Jamaica.

The content of this post is presented for cultural and religious purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/03/black-church-marches-processions-by.html for Part I of a pancocojams series that presents information about possible cultural influences on Black (African American) church usher, nurses, or choir processions. The links to the other posts in that series are found in that post.

I'm revisiting both of these 2019 pancocojams posts because I'm interested in exploring the influence of these processions on the single file (circular) soul line dances such as those that are showcased in this 2026 pancocojams post "Follow Me" & Four Other YouTube Videos Of African American (Soul) Line Dances That Were Choreographed For Music That Wasn't Recorded For Line Dancing (Part II)
https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/08/follow-me-four-other-youtube-videos-of.html 

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DESCRIPTIONS OF WAYS CHOIRS "MARCH AROUNDS" ARE PERFORMED
1. The church choir leaves the choir stand during the offering. They "march" in a single file while singing and continue up the left hand aisle. The choir then continues singing and marching down the center aisle pass two men standing in the front who hold the offering plates. Choir members put their offering in one of the plates while they continue singing and marching back up to the choir stand.

The rest of the congregation is standing singing along with the choir throughout this entire time. Some members of the congregation clap along with the song, hold their arm up. Some choir members and some members of the congregation may show that they are touched by the spirit (get happy, go in). If this occurs with a choir member, the person in back of that choir member helps that person along so that she or he continues moving in the line during the march around.

2. All of the above applies to this way of doing "march arounds" except that after the choir moves down the center aisle, they then move down the aisle on the right hand side and then move down the center aisle. At that point they give their offering and then return to the choir stand.  

The church choir may do a march around, in part, as a way of giving their collection. (Based on some YouTube videos) it appears that some church choirs in Jamaica do march arounds apart from collections to demonstrate their praise toward God and, in so doing, increase the presence of the Holy Spirit in that worship service.

Additions and corrections to these descriptions are welcome.

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DEFINITION OF CHURCH CHOIRS "MARCH INS"
"Church march arounds" differs from "church march ins".

"March ins" - when a church choir or other church group/ministry (such as ushers or nurses) march into the church sanctuary-usually from the center aisle- to mark the beginning of the worship service or special program such as that group/s anniversary or a convention.

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
In contrast to a number of videos of African American church choirs marching in to the sanctuary to begin the church service, I haven't found any YouTube videos of Jamaican church choirs doing "march ins". If you know of any links to those videos and/or if you know of this custom in Jamaica, please share that information in the comment section below. Thanks!

I also haven't found any online articles about Black church processions (marches), including Jamaican church processions, except those pancocojams blog posts that I've published. If you know of any other links to information or comments on this subject, please share them below. Also, please share your experiences with Black church processions (marches), including when and where you observed or participated in those marches. Thanks!

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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Video #1: Jesus He Never Failed Me Yet Paise Break



First United Tabernacle International Ministries, Published on Aug 23, 2013

(FUTIM) New Jersey 

Upper Room Conference 2013
-snip-

Here's what I think the choir and congregation are repeatedly singing:

I have a God
Who never failed me yet
I have a God
Who never failed me yet
Jesus he never failed me yet
Jesus He never failed me yet.

[Additions and corrections are welcome.]
Here are very similar lyrics to this chorus: https://gospelchoruses.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/he-never-fail-me-yet/

"He never failed me yet.
He never fail me yet
Jesus Christ never failed me yet*
And everywhere I go
I want the world to know
Jesus Christ never failed me yet.

 

* This line may be sung as:

Jesus’ blood never failed me yet

or

Jesus’ love never failed me yet"

****
Here are some comments from this video's discussion thread, with number added for referencing purposes only.
1. John Blackwood, 2013
"That man sounds Jamaican... Is he?"

**
REPLY
2. Melissa Fernandez, 2018
"Yes"
-snip-
I think that's very likely that this New Jersey church was founded by Jamaicans and/or that a number of people in the congregation are of Jamaican ancestry.

**
3. cclarke0786, 2013
"Praise Him saints.
The lyrics to this song are????"

**
REPLY
4. Steffi Solomon, 2013
"stumble and fall He never fail me yet, i did what i want He never fail me yet
Jesus He never failed me yet
Jesus He never failed me yet"

**
5. Crystal Chambers, 2014
"this video!!!!!!!.........Pentecostal in Worship, Apostolic in Doctrine"

**
6. ann D, 2016
"Powerful pure worship"

**
7. Gil Miller, 2016
"Bless the Lord. Is it in New Jersey or Canada? I am planning to visit there I'm from london UK."

**
REPLY
8. Rozell Vousden, 2018
"Gil Miller New Jersey"

**
REPLY
9. First United Tabernacle International Ministries, 2018
"We are located at 425 South Jefferson Street, Orange, NJ 07050"
-snip-
Orange, New Jersey is about 24 minutes by car from New York City.

**
10. IamKemi, 2016
"Can someone explain to me why they do that all the time? (choir dancing in the aisle) Is it a custom in their church?"

**
11. Ronin Williams, 2016
"I want to come to New Jersey just to go to this church"

**
12. Miss Harris, 2016
"Phenomenal ....real authentic Pentecostal Worship xx"

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Video #2: We Have An Anchor



First United Tabernacle International Ministries, Published on Nov 26, 2016

31st Pastoral Appreciation Celebration
Nov. 13, 2016

-snip-
Here's the words that are repeatedly sung by the choir and by the congregation:
"We have an anchor that keeps the soul
steadfast and sure while the billows roll;
fastened to the Rock which cannot move,
grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love!
-snip-
This is the refrain (chorus) to the song "Will your anchor hold in the storms of life" that was composed by Priscilla J. Owens, a White American who was born in 1829. Click https://hymnary.org/text/will_your_anchor_hold_in_the_storms_of_l  for the lyrics for this complete song. 

Here are some comments from this video's discussion thread, with number added for referencing purposes only.
HannahYael, 2018
"It’s wonderful to see people praising GOD"

**
2, WWJD ?, 2018
"Glory to God , nothing like a Holy Ghost party !"

**
3. dgreenja, 2018
"Good old time song"

**
4. Black Love, 2018
"Wonderful. ..old time way of worship"

**
5. Sylvia Hamilton, 2018
"Church like it should be! Praise God."

**
6. suebern330, 2018
"reminds me so much of Spalding New Testament New Church. Holy Ghost Pentecostal, my God I love it"
-snip-
Spalding New Testament New Church is located in Clarendon, Jamaica.

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ADDENDUM #1- SOME INFORMATION ABOUT JAMAICANS IN THE UNITED STATES
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_Americans
"Jamaican Americans are Americans who have full or partial Jamaican ancestry. The largest proportion of Jamaican Americans live in New York City, which has various other Caribbean cultural elements such as food and music. There are also communities of Jamaican Americans residing in Philadelphia, Boston, South Florida, Tampa, Los Angeles, Orlando, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Cleveland, Western New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.

Significant immigration waves

Apart from Canada and England, the U.S. houses the majority of Jamaican émigrés worldwide. Jamaican immigration to the U.S. increased during the civil rights era of the 1960s. As with many other sources of Caribbean immigration, the geographical nearness of Jamaica to the U.S. increased the likelihood of migration. The economic attractiveness and general Jamaican perception of the U.S. as a land of opportunity explain continued migration flows despite economic downturn in America. Traditionally, America has experienced increased migration through means of family preference, in which U.S. citizens sponsor their immediate family. Through this category a substantial amount of Jamaican immigrants were able to enter mainly urban cities within the U.S that provided blue-collar work opportunities. Jamaican immigrants utilized employment opportunities despite the discriminatory policies that affected some Caribbean émigrés.[2]

At present, Jamaicans are the largest group of American immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean. However, it is difficult to verify the exact number of Jamaican Americans in this country because most of them assimilate into the wider black community. The 1990 census placed the total number of documented Jamaican Americans at 435,025.

Settlement
According to the text of Immigrant America (p. 69)[clarification needed], there were 554,897 Jamaican-born people living in the U.S. in 2000. This represents 61% of the approximate 911,000 Americans of Jamaican ancestry. Many Jamaicans are second, third and descend from even older generations, as there have been Jamaicans in the U.S. as early as the early twentieth Century....Large communities of Jamaican immigrants have formed in New York City and the New York Metro Area, which includes Long Island and much of New Jersey and Connecticut, along with Florida (centered in and around the Miami, Tampa, and Orlando areas), which has the second largest Jamaican community in the U.S, and Philadelphia. In recent years, many Jamaicans have left New York City for its suburbs, and large Jamaican communities have also formed in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Washington D.C., Boston, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Los Angeles, and Providence.

[...]

U.S. metropolitan areas with largest Jamaican populations

The top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the largest populations of Jamaicans (Source: 2012 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates)[6]

New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA-CT MSA – 353,770

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL MSA – 178,791

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA – 55,422

Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL MSA – 32,754

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA – 30,469

Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT MSA – 25,732

Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA – 23,861

Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA – 20,621

Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT MSA – 13,997

Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA – 13,063"....
-snip-
As an aside, while I don't have any Jamaican ancestry, my maternal grandparents were Caribbean emigrants to Southern New Jersey (Atlantic City) in the late 19th century. My grandfather was originally from Tobago and my grandmother was from Barbados.

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ADDENDUM #2: DESCRIPTION OF A BLACK CHURCH CHOIR MARCH AROUND (CHOIR COLLECTION) THAT I OBSERVED IN NEW JERSEY (MARCH 2019) 

Revision June 22, 2019 based on my visit to that church on June 9, 2019
St. Paul AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church is located in Pleasantville, New Jersey about 14 minutes from Atlantic City, New Jersey. Reverend Lynda T. Rassmann is the pastor of that church.

Latest revision Oct. 14, 2021 - to clarify some points

Description:

These choir collection marches ("march around") occurred after all those in attendance at that church -starting from the back pews- stood up and walked in single file to the front of the church for the main offering. People placed money in one of two gold colored collection plates that were held by two female ushers standing on either side of the altar. This was the second collection, the first being the missionary offering. For that offering, people remained seated and ushers passed a collection plate to the end of each pew.

After the congregation returned to their seats, the choir marched out of the choir stands in single file from the left and the right while singing the classic Gospel song "Highway To Heaven". The body stance of each choir member was erect, and not the leaning forward with heads down stance and chugging forward movement which was done by the Black Canadian choir from Abiezer Pentecostal Church's collection march as shown in this 2009 YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ5xSuIMfuo.

 After the two lines of choir members exited the choir stand, one line marched up the right aisle and one line marched up the left aisle. The two single lines met at the top of the center aisle. Then the choir marched in twos down the center aisle. When they reached the bottom of the center aisle, the person to the right placed her offering in the collection plate held by one usher, and the person to the left placed her offering in the collection plate held by the other usher. The line on the right and the line on the left then marched to their respective aisles. When they reached those aisles, the marchers faced backwards while moving up those aisles. At the top of the aisles, the marchers faced forward again and then marched to the top of the center aisle. At the top of the center aisle the two single lines combined to march in twos down that aisle. The combined line then separated at the bottom of the center aisle to march back towards the right and the left to re-enter the choir stand. When they reached the choir stand, they continued standing to sing their song.
-snip-
Thanks to my younger brother, Dr. R.E.B Manning, the director of St. Paul AME's choir and his wife Charlotte Manning, who is a member of that choir for confirming my recollections about this collection march. [phone conversations March 24, 2019, and March 26, 2019]. Both R.E.B. and Charlotte used the term "collection march", not the term "march around".

In my separate telephone conversation with them, R.E.B. Manning and Charlotte Manning indicated that every Sunday this choir marches in to the sanctuary to begin the church service and marches for collection.

Charlotte Manning also shared with me that she remembers choirs marching in and choirs marching for collection being customs that were done every Sunday at Baptist churches and at AME churches- including St. Paul AME church- that she attended/attends in Pleasantville, New Jersey since the late 1950s. Charlotte mentioned that there were some people from the West Indies who belonged to those churches, although her family wasn't from there. Charlotte also shared that the pastor of St. Paul AME in Pleasantville had Jamaican roots.

I was raised in Atlantic City, New Jersey (about 15 minutes from Pleasantville) and I don't recall observing any choir march arounds at any church that I attended. This is probably because I usually only attended my own church, particularly on Sunday mornings, and I only remember attending an AME church for a choir competition. I also don't recall ever attending an A.M.E Zion church or a church of any other denomination during my childhood and my teen years. However, I have vivid memories of choir march ins at my church (Union Baptist Temple Church) being done every Sunday (since the mid 1950s). And the choir march in custom is still done at that church to begin the (main) Sunday service (as confirmed by my youngest brother Kenneth Manning in a telephone conversation on March 24, 2019. Kenneth is a member of one of Union Baptist Temple's choir) . Although I didn't ask him that question, I'm sure that my brother R. E.B Manning would also remembers choir march ins at Union Baptist Temple Church in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

I also recall attending an anniversary concert of the Spiral Chorus, the church choir that my mother sang in and observing them march down the center aisle to the choir stand singing "Move Up The King's Highway". 

**The St. Paul AME Church choir is under the direction of Dr. R. E. B. Manning who is also the choir's organist. The other musicians who accompanied the choir are Kenneth Moore (pianist & saxophone player), George Thomas, (snare) drummer, and Larry King, tambourine player.

To be clear, the St. Paul AME Church service was much more sedate that the First United Tabernacle International Ministries church service. In contrast to the exuberant expressions by the congregation at First United Tabernacle, the St. Paul's the congregation remained in their seats and didn't appear to express themselves in any way while the choir did their collection march. Also, as somewhat of an aside, notice that females (especially women) at First United Tabernacle wore hats (covered their head which is an old church tradition that I recall at my Baptist church in the 1950s to around the early 1960s). However, I don't recall any female wearing any hat or head covering at St. Paul's AME church.

Disclaimer: This description doesn't necessarily mean that each of St Paul AME Church Choir's collection marches are always done this way or that all march arounds by African American choirs fit this description.

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This concludes Part III of this pancocojams series.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Seven YouTube Videos Of "Ring Around The Rosie" (And Similar Titles) with lyrics and video descriptions

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part III of a three part pancocojams series about the "Ring Around The Rosie" children's rhymes and singing games.

This post showcases seven YouTube videos of "Ring Around The Rosie" or similar titles and provides my description of these videos with particular focus on the lyrics of that version of that song. Read my Editor's notes for a summation of my description.

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 https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/08/versions-of-rhyme-singing-game-ring.html  for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post documents various pre-February 2005* versions of "Ring Around The Rosie." (*This date is prior to the launch of  YouTube on the internet).

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.

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PANCOCOJAMS DESCRIPTION SUMMATION
There are a lot of YouTube videos for the children's singing game "Ring Around The Rosie" and similar titles.

I selected these examples to showcase the different ways that English language versions of "Ring Around The Rosie" are sung. 

Where these videos are from
The groups that are featured in Showcase videos #3, #4, #5 either sing or move to a record of the "standard" one verse United States version of "RIng Around The Rosie" (or similar titles for this singing game.).

Based on the three verse version of this singing game (and particularly based on the words "Atishoo Atishoo/ We all fall down" that is used for the third and fourth lines of this version, the group that is featured in Showcase #1 is from Great Britain.

Based on how the children in this video and their clothing were drawn, and based on the video's music, Video #2 represents how this singing game is performed in India.

Although Showcase video #7 was produced by a company from India, the physical appearance (including the way that they are dressed) represents how this singing game is performed in Britian.  

**
Pronunciation of the word "rosie"
"Rosies" is an informal word that is used in this rhyme/singing game instead of the word "roses" that is used in formal English as the plural word for "rose".

Often the word "rosies" is pronounced to rhyme with the word "posies" even if the word in the video's caption is given as "roses". ("Rosies" sounds like "roh-zees".)

**
Number of verses
In the showcase videos that are from the United States, "Ring Around The Rosie" (or similar titles) only has one four line verse. The third and fourth lines are always "Ashes, ashes. We all fall down". This verse is repeated for each iteration of the singing game. This version can be considered as the "standard" United States version of "Ring Around The Rosie".

Videos of this singing game from outside of the United States also appear to usually have just one four line verse that is repeated again and again. However, the third and fourth lines of these verses are always "Atishoo, Atishoo" we all fall down. ("Atishoo" is a word that imitates the sound of someone  sneezing.) This can be considered the standard British way of singing this nursery rhyme/singing game.

Notice that the Showcase video given as #1 in this pancocojams compilation, this singing game has three different four line verses. This reflects an older way of singing this nursery rhyme/children's song

**
Tune/tempo
In each of these showcase videos, the tune that is used for "Ring Around The Rosie" is basically the same. The tempos for each example may be speeded up or slowed down.

**
How the group moves around the circle for this singing game
Groups either move in a clockwise circular direction or in a counterclockwise circular direction for the singing game "Ring Around The Rosie" (or similar titles). 
 
The showcase videos in which the group moves clockwise are #4 and #6.. 

The showcase videos in which the group moves counterclockwise are #1, #2, #3, #5.

In Showcase video #7, the group moves counterclockwise for the first line and then moves clockwise for the second line. The group then stands still and mimics the "Atishoo" (sneeze) before following the "All fall down" instructions of "Alimi

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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
This compilation is only a small sample of the YouTube videos of this rhyme/singing game.

These videos are presented in chronological order based on their publishing date with the oldest published date given first.

Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.

This compilation is only a small sample of the YouTube videos of this rhyme/singing game.

SHOWCASE VIDEO #1 - Ring-A-Ring-O'-Roses- Activity Song with Singalong Lyrics

And So To Bed TV,Sep 18, 2013

Singalong with us to one of the nation's favorite children's songs!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRsuanAdmsg
-snip-
Description:
Three mothers and their toddlers are standing outside in a park. They form a small circle holding hands and march in place for a brief time before the women start singing "Ring a ring a Roses". (The singers have British accents.)

The group moves counterclockwise to the song.

Lyrics:

Ring a ring a roses
A pocket full o’ posies
A tishoo! A tishoo!
We all fall down.

The group falls down on the grass. One of the women holds a hand puppet of a cow and pretend that the cow is eating the grass as is sung in this second verse of this song

The cows are in the meadow, eating all the grass
A tishoo! A tishoo!
We all jump up.

Everyone stands back up and the song is repeated again.

****
SHOWCASE VIDEO #2 - Ringa Ringa Roses | Ring Around the Rosie -3D Kid's Songs & Nursery Rhymes for children

CVS 3D Rhymes & Kids Songs, May 13, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj_dtWTKetI

This group is shown moving counterclockwise around the circle.

Lyrics:

Ring-a-ring o' roses,

A pocket full of posies,

A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

We all fall down.
-snip-
This is an animation video of Indian children playing the singing game 'Ring a ring o' roses". The children are standing outdoors, holding hands while they move in a counterclockwise direction around a rose bush in the middle of the circle.

This rhyme is chanted not sung, the music in the background has an India flavor but is somewhat similar to the “standard” English tune and tempo of this singing game.

****
SHOWCASE VIDEO #3- Ring Around the Rosies Nursery Rhyme performed by Patty Shukla



Patty Shukla KidsTV- Children's Songs , Jan 27, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsnFynunqvI
-snip-
Patty Shukla and different ages of children are outside singing this song while holding a large colorful play parachute that the group holds and sits under at the end of each iteration of the song.

Lyrics: 
Ring around the rosies
Pocketful of posies.
Ashes, Ashes
We all fall down.

The group moves counterclockwise in a circular direction while they sing this verse over and over again.

****
SHOWCASE VIDEO #4 - evokids - Ring Around The Rosie | Nursery Rhymes | Kids songs

evokids, Apr 29, 2015  #kidssongs #nurseryrhymes #babysongs

A fun and classic playground singing game to play with your friends! Listen and play ‘ring around the rosie’. 🌼 🌺 🌷 🌹 🌻

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLE-gGQMlCw
-snip-
This animated video shows children standing outside singing "Ring Around The Roses". Based on their accents and the lyrics that they sing, this video depicts children from the USA singing this song. (This video presents different harmonizing versions of these standard American lyrics  with each iteration of this song.

Lyrics:
Ring around the rosies
Pocketful of posies.
Ashes, Ashes
We all fall down.

The group moves in a clockwise circular direction to this song. 

****
SHOWCASE VIDEO #5-  Ring-Around-the-Rosie Song

AFHero66, Mar 20, 2017

At my daughter's 5th birthday party, there may have been a tad      too much sugar, but endless choruses of fun. Lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpOC28pYmd4 [moving
-snip
Lyrics:
Ring around the rosies 
Pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes we all fall DOWN
-snip-
The children move counterclockwise around the circle.

****

SHOWCASE VDEO #6- Ring-A-Ring O'Rosy 🌸 Children's Nursery Rhyme 🎶 Kids Dance Song 🕺 The Wiggles 

Premiered Aug 21, 2023  #TheWiggles #KidsSongs #NurseryRhymes

Step into a world of joyful play with this delightful rendition of 'Ring-A-Ring O'Rosy'! The Wiggles invite children to join the circle of laughter and movement as they sing this timeless nursery rhyme, with interactive actions that spark imagination and coordination. From dancing in a circle to pretending to fall down, 'Ring-A-Ring O'Rosy' engages toddlers and preschoolers in a fun game of musical storytelling. Come and join the circle of fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkHVV5nMs2g
-snip-
Lyrics:
Ringa ring o’ rosy

a pocketful of posies

Atishoo atishoo

We all fall down
-snip-
The singers move in a clockwise direction around the circle.
-snip-
The Wiggles (music group) were formed in 1991 from New South Wales, Australia.

The version of this singing game that they use reflects Australia's British heritage.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #7 - Ringa Ringa Roses Outdoor Play Song for Kids | Circle Time Fun! ChuChu TV Nursery Rhymes for Infants

ChuChu TV Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs, Premiered Aug 8, 2025 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zshekB5rYcE
-snip-
Video description for the beginning singing game "Ringa Ringa Rosey"

This is an animated video of a group of children at a park. A girl seated on the park bench in the playground reads this rhyme in a book:

"Ringa ringa rosey
pocket full of posies
atischoo atischoo we all fall down"

The children see a ruse bush and then go over to it, form a circle and sing this song.

The group moves counterclockwise for the fist line, then move clockwise for the second line, for the word a tishoo a tishoo the children stand still and cover their mouth as if they had sneezed, on the word we all fall down, the group falls down.

This verse is repeated a number of times; the tune is slightly different after the first line, the tempo is slow.

This video includes other nursery rhymes/singing games.

Note that Chu Chu TV is from India. However, the animation doesn't reflect that. Instead, the integrated group of children and the clothes that they wear appears to imply that the the location of this video is in Great Britain, or in the United States, or in another "Western" nation where there are White children and Black children.

That said, the "atishoo atischoo" words in this video reflects India's British heritage.

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This concludes Part III of this pancocojams series.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Lyric Versions Of The Rhyme/ Singing Game "Ring Around The Rosies" And Similar Titles

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 https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/08/seven-youtube-videos-of-ring-around.html__ for Part III of this pancocojams series. That post showcases seven 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.

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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]

 
On the final line, "they stand and imitate sneezing".[11] The Opies, in their Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, record similar variations that have appeared over time.[12]"...

****
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.  Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ring-a-ring-of-roses
From: alison
Date: 09 May 00 - 12:13 AM

"My kids sing this second verse the cows are in the meadows eating buttercups A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all jump up."... ** 3. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ring-a-ring-of-roses From: GUEST,Jonathanchandler@hotmail.com Date: 09 May 00 - 02:02 PM "thanks folks, that was indeed the second verse that I knew!"... ** 4. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ring-a-ring-of-roses From: Melbert Date: 11 May 00 - 04:03 PM "The version which my mum sang to me whilst bouncing me on her knee, and which we now sing to our Grandchildren has a second verse which goes:  Ashes in the water, Ashes in the sea Up we jump with a 1-2-3" ** 5.Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ring-a-ring-of-roses From: Bernard Date: 13 Mar 05 - 11:24 AM "The version we sing around these parts (Bolton, Lancashire, England) is:   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'!!" ** 6. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ring-a-ring-of-roses From: GUEST,Cali Date: 13 Mar 05 - 02:10 AM "This is what I've heard.   The cows are in the meadow Eating all the daisies Thunder, lighting We all stand up."... ** 7. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ring-a-ring-of-roses From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 13 Mar 05 - 01:22 PM "Thanks for the 'fishes' verse which is not in Opies' "The Singing Game." It shows that the rhyme is still adding variants."...

****
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

"When we were little, there was a second verse, sung while sitting on the floor after "all fall down":

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

"The version of the rhyme common in Motherwell, Scotland was:

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. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 11:21 PM

"In view of the constantly recurring speculations, it seems a good idea to post a variety of the versions, with dates. The earliest dated "Ring Around the Rosie" is ca. 1790 (and this reference can't be found now) as suggested in this rhyme from Massachusetts:

 

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 happened upon this thread last night. After reading some of the old American variants of "Ring Around The Rosie", I got to thinking about the possible connection between these rhymes and the version of "Green Sally Up" that is found on Disc 4 of Alan Lomax's Sounds of the South, A Musical Journey from the Georgia Sea Isles to the Mississippi Delta {Atlantic 787496-2; 1993}.

[...]

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

"The first rhyme that I think has some similarities with "Green Sally Up" {what I call version #1, "The Sounds of South" CD version} is the rhyme that Dicho posted on this thread in 2002

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

"My understanding of the rhyme here in Canada goes "Ring around the rosey a pocket full of posies, husha husha we all fall down.

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

"Crylo, correct.

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.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Debunking The Belief That "Ring Around The Rosie" Rhymes & Singing Games Refer To The Plague

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a three part pancocojams series about the "Ring Around The Rosies" children's rhymes and singing games. 

This post debunks the theories that these rhymes and singing games have anything to do with the plague.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/08/versions-of-rhyme-singing-game-ring.html  for Part II of this pancocojams series. That 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/seven-youtube-videos-of-ring-around.html__ for Part III of this pancocojams series. That post showcases seven 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.

****

Pagan myth and folklore

In 1898, A Dictionary of British Folklore suggested that the game may have pagan origins. This was based on a comparison in the Sheffield Glossary with Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, which relates it to pagan myths. It cites a passage that reads, "Gifted children of fortune have the power to laugh roses, as Freyja wept gold," suggesting that the game’s origins may involve pagan beings of light. Another interpretation is more literal, proposing that it involved making a "ring" around roses and ending with "all fall down" as a kind of curtsy.[27]

 

In 1892, the American writer Eugene Field wrote a poem titled Teeny-Weeny, which specifically described fay folk playing ring-a-rosie.[28]

 

According to Games and Songs of American Children, published in 1883, the "rosie" was thought to refer to the French word for rose tree, with children dancing and bowing to the person in the center.[7] Some variations included literal falling down, which lessened the connection to the game-rhyme's original form. In 1898, sneezing was also noted as a symbol with superstitious and supernatural significance across various cultures.[27]

Great Plague

Since the Second World War, the rhyme has often been associated with the Great Plague of 1665 in England or with earlier outbreaks of the bubonic plague in England. However, interpreters of the rhyme before World War II make no mention of this connection.[29] By 1951, this interpretation had become widely accepted as an explanation for the rhyme’s form that had become standard in the United Kingdom. Peter and Iona Opie, leading authorities on nursery rhymes, observed:

 

The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern English versions have given would-be origin finders the opportunity to say that the rhyme dates back to the Great Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a symptom of the plague, and posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and "all fall down" was exactly what happened.[30][31]

The line Ashes, Ashes in colonial versions of the rhyme has been claimed to refer variously to cremation of bodies, the burning of victims' houses, or the blackening of skin due to the disease. This theory has been adapted to explain other versions of the rhyme.[32]

Folklore scholars consider the Great Plague explanation of the rhyme to be unfounded for several reasons. Firstly, the plague explanation did not emerge until the mid-twentieth century,[19] while the symptoms described do not align closely with those of the Great Plague.[31][33] The wide variety of forms makes it unlikely that the modern version is the most ancient one, and the words on which this interpretation is based are not present in many of the earliest records of the rhyme.[32][34] In addition, European and 19th-century versions of the rhyme suggest that this "fall" was not a literal falling down, but rather a curtsy or other bending movement that was common in other dramatic singing games.[35]”…

****
SELECTED COMMENTS FROM MUDCAT DISCUSSION THREAD ABOUT "RING AROUND THE ROSIE" AND THE BELIEF THAT IT REFERS TO THE PLAGUE"

These selected comments are numbered for referencing purposes only.

From https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=21219

1. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ring-a-ring-of-roses
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 May 00 - 05:27 PM

..."Traditional Ballad Index entry:

Ring Around the Rosie

DESCRIPTION: Singing game, with lyrics something like "Ring around the rosie, A pocket full of posies, Ashes, ashes, We all fall down."

AUTHOR: unknown

EARLIEST DATE: 1881 (_Kate Greenway's Mother Goose_, according to Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame)

[…]

The origin of the song is unknown. Pagan myth or folklore were proposed as origins at the end of the 19th century. In the mid-20th-century, it was suggested that the song reflects the Great Plague or earlier outbreaks of bubonic plague in England, with the plague's rash, protective posies of herbs, symptoms of sneezing, and finally falling down dead. However, the symptoms do not align closely with the song; the explanation emerged centuries after the plague; and European and 19th-century versions of the song do not match the interpretation either.

[...]

Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose notes that some have connected this to the Great Plague, and Devlin, pp. 111-112, lists some of those who have suggested it. But the Baring-Goulds also observe that this is a very weak link, denied by most who have seriously studied the matter. The Opies merely state that it goes back the *time* of the plague -- and offer no direct proof even of that. The Opies also cite some possible non-English parallels; those which are in languages I can read do not strike me as truly parallel. But Devlin, pp. 115-116, also sees a strong parallel to the German version he prints on p. 116.

Devlin, pp. 117-119, has details on how the plague idea came to be popular in a very short span of time.

John Kelly, The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time, Harper Collins, 2005, pp. 20-21, has more explanation than most. According to him, the "ashes, ashes" of the third line are a reference to the bruiseline purple blotches which appeared on the bodies of some victims. These were known as "God's tokens" because they indicated that the sufferer was soon to die. He does, however, point out that this symptom is very rarely observed in modern plague. So this is a pretty weak link. Plus many versions don't have the "ashes" line. - RBW

Last updated in version 6.8

[…]

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle."

**
2. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ring-a-ring-of-roses
From: GUEST
Date: 08 May 00 - 05:41 PM

"I don't think any modern folklorist would accept any association of the song with the plague. Steve Roud, Secretary of the Folklore Society, London, specifically denounced that association several months ago on a subscription newsgroup."

**
3. Subject: Ring around the rosy
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 May 00 - 05:45 PM

..." 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)."...

**
4. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ring-a-ring-of-roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 01:22 PM

..."Associating the plague with this 19th c. singing game, however, is nonsense, as has been shown here in more than one thread. Twentieth-century mythologists, as the Opies' call them, are responsible for this fiction."

****
From https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672&messages=214&page=1
1.Subject: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,genie
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 04:51 PM

"Asked in another thread's topic so here is a new one. I would like to know where Ring Around The Rosey came from?"

**
2. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 05:02 PM

"I've seen lots of explanations that it is based on the Black Death/Plague, and quite a lot saying this is rubbish! A verified history would be nice .."

**
3. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:39 PM

...."A bit of a side issue: Most versions have the fall down or tumble down line. I quoted one from Louisiana, Lomax Coll., which has "squat." My wife, from Georgia, says it was always "squat" in her area. Is "squat" confined to the South or a part thereof, or is it more widespread?

 Another thought. Has it ever been related to the burning of witches or heretics??"

**
4.  Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:48 PM

"No; it isn't old enough for that. It's quite easy to consult the Opie's Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (available in all good libraries), and it's a constant puzzle to me why people rarely bother to do so, preferring instead to repeat long-discredited Old Wives' Tales. First printed in Britain in 1881, but apparantly known in Massachusetts around 1790; where it had none of the later accretions which people nowadays imagine to refer to the Black Death."

**
5. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 09:09 PM

..."Though a form of the rhyme is on record as having existed at the end of the 18th century, it appears at that time to have been a simple dancing game:

Ring a ring a rosie,

A bottle full of posie,

All the girls in our town,

Ring for little Josie

 

The Opies further comment

"The A-tishoo is notably absent here, as it is also in other versions [William Wells Newell, Games and Songs of American Children, 1883] 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.

 

They go on to dismiss fairly comprehensively the "Black Death" myth, which appears to be a fanciful invention of the 20th century. I think I've quoted them on the subject here before, so there's no need to repeat it now. As I've said, the book is easily available. All of this doesn't prove, as Greg rightly points out, that sneezes and falling down did not occur in earlier versions; since, however, their first known appearance is of some 90 years after the first recorded forms of the rhyme, the balance of probability is that they are, as I said (though I should have suggested) later accretions. Whatever, there is no evidence of any kind that the rhyme is older than the 18th century, unless further material has been unearthed since the Opies wrote on the subject"

**
6.  Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 03:38 PM

"The piece left out of the puzzle in the above posts is that the plague interpretation is itself not old. There is no old folk knowledge about a connection between the plague and this rhyme. The claim seems to have been made only in the mid twentieth century, if Philip Hiscock of memorial University Newfoundland is correct.

In the absence of any sort of old folk knowledge, we can reasonably ask what evidence the mid twentieth century originators of the plague idea had. First of all, the interpretation is based essentially on one variant instead of on the huge range of texts that exist. Second, it proposes meanings for some of the words (ashes referring to cremation, ring around the rosie referring to a rash on the cheek) which are clever but not compelling. Third, even if they were compelling, why a medieval plague and not a nineteenth century outbreak of some disease?

All this suggests to a folklorist (which I am) that the whole thing is a red herring. You have to assume that the one text being analyzed retained all the oldest features (for which there is no evidence), that this text contains cryptic refernces to disease (for which there is no evidence) and that this disease was a very old plague (for which there is no evidence). In the end, whether a folklorist believes a given interpretation or not is based on evidence, and there is just no evidence of any kind that this interpretation is correct, besides a clever correspondence between some meanings of some of the words and some of the features of some diseases."

**
7. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 05:35 PM

"The plague of 1665, mentioned by Greg Stephens and others, reminded me that Samuel Pepys, who lived through this time, best known for his diaries, was a ballad collector. His collection of over 1800 was left to Magdalene College (See Firth, Introduction to "An American Garland").

The thorough explanation by Philip Hiscock should be saved because the topic will undoubtedly come up again. I can't bring up any old threads today, but titles suggest that the subject has come up several times before."...

**
8. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: masato sakurai
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 09:24 PM

"Another link:

(4) The "Real" Meaning of "Ring Around the Rosie"

The story of "Ring around the Rosie" and the Plague seems to be fairly widespread and diehard. A good number of websites contend or imply that there was a relationship (e.g., Black Death). Jack Maguire, in his Hopscotch, Hangman, Hot Potato, and Ha, Ha, Ha: A Rulebook of Children's Games (Prentice Hall, 1990, p. 4), reiterates this origin theory (of course, without evidence):

One of the grimmest stories of the origin of a game now called Ring-Around-the-Rosy. The first line of this verse, originally "Ring-a-ring o' roses," refers to the circular body rash that was an early symptom of the Great Plague of London, 1665. The healthy attempted to thwart the disease by carrying herbs ("A pocket full of posies"). In the final stages of the disease, the victim would start sneezing violently ("A-tishoo! A-Tishoo!," later corrupted to "ashes! Ashes!"). Death followed quickly ("We all fall down").

It would be interesting to discuss it from another point of view: "Why and how was the plague theory born in spite of nonexistence of evidence?"."

**
9. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 09:32 PM

"Masato, facts and evidence are irrelevant to true believers, and true believers always have the most votes. They call those who hold to facts or evidence heretics"

**
10.  Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 10:19 PM

"A-tishoo is noted in 1883, according to Opie. Two years earlier, Greenway had published Hush! Hush! Hush! Her writings were very popular in both the British Isles and North America and Hush! would be expected there as well. When was Ashes! first noted? You suggest that it is the corruption of A-tishoo, which is possible, but this shift would have more likely taken place in England.

The interpretation of the rose tree and the circle of players as a rash seems a difficult jump; it could have been stated by a popular author or editor of a widely circulated paper or magazine. (Wasn't there a tendency for Late Victorian-Edwardian authors to make illogical jumps like that?). It seems to me that the shift to ashes! from hush or a-tishoo is more likely a "guided" one than one evolved by children.

My (unsupported) suggestion is that there is an author or editor in the woodpile, and we might be able to identify him. Children certainly(?) did not evolve the plague theory."

**
11. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:48 PM

..."It's quite easy to consult the Opie's Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (available in all good libraries), and it's a constant puzzle to me why people rarely bother to do so, preferring instead to repeat long-discredited Old Wives' Tales. First printed in Britain in 1881, but apparantly known in Massachusetts around 1790; where it had none of the later accretions which people nowadays imagine to refer to the Black Death"

****
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672&messages=214&page=2

12. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,adavis@truman.edu
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 12:35 AM

"Masato's got a good question. If we take the plague-origin-theory not as a historical proposition, but as folklore itself, then we can forget about whether it's accurate (a substantial wing of folklorists regard origins as never completely recoverable, therefore uninteresting. I never quite followed the "therefore" part). So the question becomes, "what's the attraction of believing this?" or "what function does it serve for those who tell it?" As a first guess, I'd venture that it's an antidote to the romantic view of children to imagine them cheerfully singing songs about something so horrible -- it reminds us that they have to cope with some pretty hhorrible stuff.

Best, Adam"

**
13. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Nerd
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 01:16 AM

"Adam,

I agree with you and Masato, actually, that a very interesting question is "why would the plague theory develop without evidence." The answer, I think, has to do with how folklore has been defined and studied, and (in the end) involves your second point about origins and the folklorist.

"Folklore" (originally "folk-lore") was coined as a "good Saxon compound" to replace the term "Popular Antiquities." Antiquarians were interested in studying old stuff. Early theorists of folklore held that the truly important meanings were almost never known to the holder of the lore, but had to be ferreted out by the folklorist, because scraps of lore were really the detritus of Mythological or Historical materials that had been forgotten. Early folkorists thus had a vested interest in connecting any scrap of lore they collected to Mythology or history, the older the better. Of course, it's ironic that folklorists seeking origins essentially ended up constructing "creation myths" of their own!

This attitude has long been discarded by folklorists in academia, but there is still, I think, a fascination with old historical and mythological origins among laypeople who have read some of the classic conjectural works of folklore/myth scholarship, like Graves's The White Goddess and Frazier's The Golden Bough. It is a form of interpretation that has a sturdy tradition behind it, though it is mostly discarded by professionals today. I would guess you need look no further than the enthusiastic readers of books like those to find the source of the Plague interpretation.

As to why folklorists have largely given up studying origins as such, I think it's because the kind of work that developed out of origins-seeking, Historic-Geographic analysis, came to seem both fruitless and pretty boring. After a long, extremely laborious process, the folklorist would conclude "it appears my best guess is that the story of X originated in India in the 7th Century, though I may be wrong about this." To which most younger folklorists in the 1960s began to ask "so what?"

I agree that origins and conjecture can be interesting, but in the end if I'm going to believe any origin story, I need some evidence."

**
14. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jul 02 - 10:16 PM

"But do you know of a book or article with the "Ashes, Ashes"? That is what I would like to find.

As Masato said, "How and why was the plague theory born in spite of the non-existence of evidence?" In other words, "Who done it?" Since it is late 19th or early 20th century, the culprit(s) should be identifiable."

**
15. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Nerd
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 01:22 AM

"I don't think it's incontrovertible at all that "a-tishoo a-tishoo we all fall down" refers to a plague or pestilence. We are dealing with a play-party song (or a children's dancing song for English folks) where "all falling down" is just part of the game. You might as well say "you put your right foot in, you take your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about" must be a song about epilepsy!

That's why the plague interpretation is so funny. It takes things that have perfectly easy meanings in that context ("ring around the rosy" or "ring a ring a roses" being an actual ring of children dancing around an actual or imagined rosebush), and gives them new meanings to suit a farfetched interpretation. The line with a-tishoo in it is just as likely to be a nonsense syllable as a sneeze--and anyway, sneezing isn't a symptom of the Black Death! Meanwhile, the things you'd expect to see in a song describing the plague are absent--The actual prominent symptom was not a rash on the cheek, but giant festering boils or buboes under the armpits and elsewhere. Of course, it'd be tough to rhyme that..."

**
16. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: IanC
Date: 24 Jul 02 - 05:00 AM

"I wonder how often people ask those who perform these things what they think the words mean. After all, it's the fact that people keep on doing certain things which is the reason that rhymes, songs etc. are traditional.

I played "ring a roses" (atishoo version) for years as a child, without any assumptions that it was anything other than a game with quite pretty words. Of course children are unlikely to know what they're doing. There's bound to be a meaning to these things that the fools who perform them can't possibly understand ...

By the way, we often seem to fall into simple dating traps like assuming prior printing to imply earlier versions of things. For folk activities, printing depends on collection. Something can go on for years and not be collected. It won't be printed. Doesn't mean that it's later than something that was printed centuries before. Concrete evidence can only ever give a latest date. It can't be used as evidence of an earliest date. 

;-)

Ian"

**
17. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: masato sakurai
Date: 29 Jul 02 - 05:07 AM

"Earlier collectors and commentators alike (Newell, Gomme, Greenaway) didn't mention its connection with the plague at all. Henry Bett, in The Games of Children: Their Origin and History (1929; Singing Tree Press, 1968), says nothing of the plague:

"There cannot be much doubt that games like Buff and Dump and Ring-a-Ring-o'-Roses, in which a laugh or a sneeze is the climax, originated in this range of quaint notions as to the uncanny significance of laughing and sneezing, and the betrayal, or the danger, or the deliverance, which these things may indicate." (p. 98)

Although Urban Legend Reference Pages: Ring Around the Rosie says "[T]he first known mention of a plague interpretation of 'Ring Around the Rosie' didn't show up until James Leasor published The Plague and the Fire in 1961," the date seems to have been earlier, because the Opies apparently had tried to debunk the theory in The Dictionary (first published in 1951). Later in 1985, they devoted a few pages to this problem in The Singing Game (Oxford, pp. 220-227):

"This story [of its being a relic of the Great Plague of 1665] has obtained such circulation in recent years it can itself be said to be epidemic. Thus the mass-circulation Radio Times, 7 June 1973, gave it a double-page headline, to advertise a documentary programme on the plague-village of Eyam (although a 1909 guide book to Eyam does not mention the rhyme); lectures at medical schools have repeated it as fact both in Britain and America (men of science are notoriously incautious when pronouncing on material in disciplines other than their own); and we ourselves have had to listen so often to this interpretation we are reluctant to go out of the house. Those infected with the belief seem unperturbed that no reference to 'Ring a Ring o' Roses' appears in Pepys's careful record of hearsay during the long months of the Plague; or that Defoe's brilliant evocation in A Journal of the Plague Year does not indicate that either sneezing or redness of spots was on men's minds at that time; or that two recent studies, Philip Ziegler's The Black Death (1969) and Professor J.F.D. Shrewsbury's History of the Bubonic Plague in the British Isles (1970), give no support to the theory, unless, that is, Thomas Vincent's observation in God's Terrible Voice in the City, 1666, is thought relevant, that roses were then neglected, since 'People dare not offer them to their noses, lest with their sweet savour that which is infectious should be attracted." (p. 221)

Their conclusion is: "Thus in 'Ring a Ring o' Roses' we have, or so it seems, a spray from the great Continental tradition of May games, that preserves the memory, however faintly, of the rose as the flower of Cupid, the wreath of roses with which Aphrodite crowned her hair, the chaplet of roses that a lover presented to his lady or with which, if she spurned him--and he followed Ovid's advice--he adorned her gatepost, the emblem that passed naturally into the social ceremony of the Middle Ages as in Chaucer's The Romaunt of the Rose...." (p. 226)

~Masato"

**
18.  Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Jul 02 - 05:36 PM

"I thought that perhaps I could find out when the the plague nonsense entered children's books at the Library. I received a bit of a shock. Books by Greenaway and Opie, Lavender's Blue and other standards of my children's days and mine are no longer on the shelves. The oldest collection of rhymes, songs and play rounds was newly assembled and copyright in 1987: Christine Allison, "I'll Tell You a Story" (but she didn't). Only about half-a-dozen had rhymes of Rosie; there were two with Ashes, Ashes and the rest were a-tischoo or similar (no squats).

One definitely stated the plague source: June Yolen's Mother Goose Songbook, 1992, Carleton House. The others had no comment.

I couldn't check the books for the smallest children; paperback and plastic, they were binned in no order and packaged in transparent bags for easy pick-up by parents; it would have taken too much time and earned me too many disaproving looks to have tried to go through them.

I remember when classics like Winnie the Pooh and the Beatrix Potter and Burgess stories were 
reprinted over and over. Now, they have either been rewritten by Disney authors or dropped altogether."

**
19. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 24 Oct 02 - 09:37 PM

"As they say, it ain't over 'til it's over. I expect more to show up. We need someone to blame and send to the stake for inventing the plague tail (er tale). Probably a nice little old lady from Brooklyn or Wode-Upon-Wiggle who had a children's radio program."

**
20. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Nerd
Date: 25 Oct 02 - 12:16 PM

"Guest Q,

No need to blame anyone. One of the nice things about this kind of claim is that it is itself folklore; it is folklore about folklore, which folklorists have called "metafolklore" and "oral literary criticism."

People become very attached to claims like this, partly because of personal or local connections (eg. Eyam), and partly because there is just something fulfilling about the thought that such a common nursery rhyme is so old and so connected to historical events of great importance. But why blame anyone? Every single one of us is probably personally attached to at least one proposition that happens to be wrong. This mistake is no worse than many of mine!"

**
21. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 25 Oct 02 - 12:50 PM

"Nerd, I have, on occasion been accused of invented a story myself. All lies, of course."

**
22. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: masato sakurai
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 09:05 AM

[Pancocojams Editor: Masato Sakurai cites the following Mudcat discussion thread]

Subject: RE: May Games, Rose, and Betley Window
From: Hester
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 05:43 PM

"Someone mentioned meta-folklore -- and yes, pieces of folk custom with obscure origins do tend to generate their own aetiological myths.

Here's a case in point. Masato quoted [if I'm following his citations correctly] the Opies in _The Singing Game_ (1985)

>>>Their conclusion is: "Thus in 'Ring a Ring o' Roses' we have, or so it seems, a spray from the great Continental tradition of May games, that preserves the memory, however faintly, of the rose as the flower of Cupid, the wreath of roses with which Aphrodite crowned her hair, the chaplet of roses that a lover presented to his lady or with which, if she spurned him--and he followed Ovid's advice--he adorned her gatepost, the emblem that passed naturally into the social ceremony of the Middle Ages as in Chaucer's The Romaunt of the Rose...." (p. 226)<<<

So, the Opies have just finished "debunking" the Great Plague theory, but they replace it with their own aetiological speculations, which, to be judgemental, seem even more romantic and implausible.

The May Games are a particular interest of mine, since I like to believe that all things folkloric revolve around Robin Hood. Well, the May Games had definitely had nothing to do with Cupid or Aphrodite (that's just classical allegory being churned out from the minds of the Opies themselves).   However, the May Queen did wear a chaplet of flowers [at least in 19th century May Day revivals]. The flower most clearly associated with May Day however, was not the rose, but the hawthorn (i.e. the mayflower). May Games involved much of the same imagery as May Day, but seemed to taken place generally a bit later, around Whitsun, and thus sometimes even into June, when the rose may have in fact been in bloom.

And we might perhaps see a parallel between the ring dance of the rhyme and the Morris, which had definitely become part of May Game celebrations by 1559 [David Wiles, _Early Plays of Robin Hood_, 1981, p. 5-6). The mid-15 century stained glass window at Betley depicts Morris Dancers around a Maypole. And, indeed the "Lady" (often identified with Maid Marian) holds a rose in her hand.

However, a rose does not appear to have been a key aspect of the Morris and does not figure in any textual descriptions of the dance from the 15th and 16th centuries, when the May Games were celebrated. Nor does a rose appear in the 19th century Morris Dances recorded by Sharpe.

So, if we have a link between the May Games and Ring around the Rosie, it is one that involves a 300-year gap in the continuum, with the Betley window as the only piece of corroboratory evidence (that I'm aware of) for even this spurious association.

Cheers, Hester"

**
23. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 06:16 PM

"The 1790 date for the American version rests on a claim by Newell. There does not seem to be any support for his claim. Or is there? I think it is just anotherspeculation, like all the nonsense about the "Drinking Gourd."

The song may be the result of the May Day revivals (the maypole was also revived in American schools) mentioned by Hester. It would not be difficult to write a scholarly paper supporting that origin. There! A Master's thesis topic for a college student."

**
24. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Hester
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 07:20 PM

"My apologies, the Betley window is (at best estimates) mid-16th, not 15th century.

Thanks for mentioning that May Day also had a revival in America, Q. I didn't realize that. (Was this also in the 19th century?)

I'm afraid your hypothetical college student wouldn't get too far with that thesis topic, though, unless the maypoles used in the American revival were somehow associated with roses.

Cheers, Hester"

**
25. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 07:49 PM

"With respect, Hester, you seem to have mistaken a vague generalisation from the Opies as some kind of statement of fact. The bulk of their work was done 50 years ago, of course. The question to consider now would perhaps be whether or not any subsequent, verifiable research has turned up any new information. Even if roses made an appearance in recorded instances of ceremonial dance, that is not evidence of any connection with the nursery rhyme."

****
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672&messages=214&page=3

26. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,Icehotchik771
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:57 PM

"I'd like to now if this song is a form of death song . So many people play it as a game , but don't think about the lyrics . I want to know what the word posey means."

**
27. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 04:17 PM

"Well, you could always read the thread. Failing that: 

1. No.

2. A small bunch of flowers."

**
28. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,chrisnlisa03
Date: 27 Aug 04 - 11:28 AM

"is there an exact definitive source to once and for all determine not only the right WORDS in the song....but where the origin of the song came from? especially since not everyone at the time of the black plague may not have had scholarly abilities."

**
29. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 27 Aug 04 - 11:43 AM

"NO. and No."

**
30. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Nerd
Date: 27 Aug 04 - 11:45 AM

"chrisnlisa03, please read the thread.

 
There is no "definitive" set of words to a folk rhyme; one of the essential characteristics of folklore is that it changes all the time.

 There is usually no way to definitively establish the exact origin, either. Folklorists used to do research to establish the "Ur-form," what they believed to be the initial form a piece of folklore, and to establish its origin. Problem was, the results were always more or less speculative.

Beyond that, if you DO read the thread you'll find there is no evidence for the rhyme being as old as the Plague. Therefore the scholarly abilities of plague victims are irrelevant."

**
31. Subject: RE: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Aug 04 - 12:46 PM

"Only one unsupported statement that puts the rhyme back as far as the late 1700s. All this has been gone over before, just read the thread."

**
32. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: GUEST,the unknown
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 09:16 AM

"ya'll need to grow up find something else to do better with ur time"

**
33. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: Nerd
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 02:30 PM

"Well, we HAD until you revived this boring old thread!"

**
34. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring Around The Rosey's History??
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 12:33 PM

"danensis, while there may be links between some "nursery rhymes" and events in history, that's insufficient evidence for linking a particular rhyme to a particular event. Linguists, etymologists, and folklorists generally refuse to accept the link between "plague" or "Black Death" or any other particular event, eipdemiological or otherwise, and the "rind around the rosy" rhyme. It is a "folk etymology" unattested by hard evidence. You can still believe in it if you like, of course, but you're engagin in an act of faith, not science."

****
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672&messages=214&page=4

35. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: GUEST,Mira Butterfly
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 08:31 PM

"I would like to know the original verse, whether it be referring to the plague or not. All three verses; or so I am told.

Can anyone possibly help me with that?"

**
36. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 08:45 PM

"There isn't an "original" form of the rhyme - there are wide variations in the earliest ones we know. Read the whole of this thread."

****
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672&messages=214&page=5

37. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 06:12 AM

"Peter Opie, whom, along with Iona, I interviewed for Folk Review in the 1970s, described the 'plague' interpretation to me as "one of those pieces of folklore about folklore"."

**
38. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 04:36 AM

"Further to my last post: Peter Opie went on to say that he didn't think children would ever have wanted to play games about dying of the plague — but they both looked a bit nonplussed, and simply replied "Good question", when I asked them: what, then, of the 'Going to the gas-chambers' game which they describe children in Auschwitz as having played, in their 'Children's Games in Street and Playground'. For some reason that I can't quite now recall I omitted this bit of our dialogue [which naturally I taped thruout with their permission] from the Folk Review feature as it eventually appeared (July 1974), so this is the first time I have published it. I still have the tape - somewhere..."

**
39. Subject: RE: Origins: Ring around the Rosy / Rosey
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 04:18 AM

"Following from Q, the Opies suggest the link is even more recent that the First world War. "The legend linking the plague with the game-song ... has not been found in the work of any commentator before the Second World War ..."

****
This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series.

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