Debunking The Commonly Held Belief That "Ring Around The Rosie" Singing Games Refer To "The Great Plague" Or "The Black Death"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents excerpts from a five page discussion thread of the online Mudcat folk music forum that debunks the commonly held belief that the "Ring Around The Rosie" refers to the 14th century Black Death* and the 17th century Great Plague.**

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, historical, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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This post is closely related to https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/03/various-old-versions-of-ring-around.html. That previously published pancocojams post quotes comments from that discussion thread also includes comments about early examples of "Ring Around The Rosey" or other singing games that might have had their source in those singing games and the possible meanings of "Ring Around The Rosie" singing games.
-snip-
*Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Death for information about The Black Death
"The Black Death peaked in Europe between 1348 and 1350, with an estimated third of the continent's population ultimately succumbing to the disease. Often simply referred to as "The Plague", the Black Death had both immediate and long-term effects on human population across the world as one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, including a series of biological, social, economic, political and religious upheavals that had profound effects on the course of world history, especially European history.",,,

**Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plague_of_London for information about the "Great Plague Of London". Here's part of that page::The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics...

The Great Plague killed an estimated 100,000 people—almost a quarter of London's population—in 18 months.[2][3] The plague was caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium,[4] which is usually transmitted to a human by the bite of a flea or louse.[5]

**
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/debunk

debunked; debunking; debunks
": to expose the sham or falseness of..."

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EXCERPTS DEBUNKING THE BELIEF THAT "RING AROUND THE ROSIE" REFERS TO THE BGREAT PLAGUE

[Numbers Added For Referencing Purposes Only]

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: 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"

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

..."They [British folklorists Iona and Peter Opies] 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"

**
5. 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."

**
6. 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").."...

**
7. 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?".

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

8. 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."

**
9. 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."

**
10. 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.."

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11. .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)"
 
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12. 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."

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13. 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."

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14. 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! "

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

15. 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.

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16. 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."

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17. 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."

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

"NO. and No."

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19. 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."

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

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

..."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."

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

21. 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."

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22. 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."

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23. 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."

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24. 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.

To repeat from posts above, no reports of the rhyme before 1880, and the 'plague' idea is a fanciful interpretation from about the time of the First World War.

See Iona and Peter Opie, 1985, "The Singing Game," Oxford University Press."

**
25. 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"."

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26. 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"...

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27. 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...

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