today's video involves a massive deadly plague that killed so many people it's
thought to have lowered the temperature of the earth hello darkness my old friend
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video ring around the rosie a pocket full of posies ashes ashes
we all fall down most of us are familiar with this classic nursery rhyme while many of us are also
aware about its surprisingly dark origins while on its face ring around the rosie may appear to
be just a silly song for children it is in fact a chilling description of the black death the
outbreak of bubonic plague that wiped out nearly a third of europe's population between 1346
and 1353. according to this interpretation ring around the rosie describes the rosy red rash
that appeared on plague victims and pocketful of posies the bunches of flowers or fragrant herbs
carried by medieval people to ward off the disease meanwhile ash's ashes sometimes sung as a tissue
a tissue refers to either the cremation of dead bodies or the sneezing of the victims while
we all fall down refers to well death only no it doesn't while countless books articles and videos
state this dark hidden meaning of ring around the rosie is fact in reality the plague interpretation
is only a couple of decades old and has been largely dismissed by folklorists and while
the notion of children innocently dancing and singing about the black death might appeal to our
macabre imaginations all evidence points to a far more mundane origin for the song the first
strike against the plague interpretation of ring around the rosie is the age of the song itself
while most sources trace the song's origin to the black death of 1346 others cite the more recent
great plague of 1665. however the song in its modern form did not appear in print until 1881
some 200 or 500 years after its supposed origin while the earliest recorded versions go back no
earlier than the 1790s if the plate theory is correct this would mean that the song survived
orally for nearly half a millennium before anyone bothered to write it down a suspiciously unlikely
occurrence another strike against the theory is that the song's lyrics have varied wildly from
place to place in decade to decade if the lyrics were originally about the plague then we would
expect the earliest versions to contain the same references as the modern day ones but this is not
the case the earliest recorded version of the song printed in germany in 1796 translates as a ring a
ring around dance we are the children free we sit under the elder bush and all go hush hush while
one of the earliest english language versions printed in an 1846 article in the brooklyn eagle
newspaper goes ring a ring a rosie a bottle full of posey all the girls in our town ring for little
josie other versions include this one recorded by american author anna stevens in her 1855 novel the
old homestead a ring a ring of roses laps full of posies awake awake now come and make a ring a ring
of roses and then there's this one published by william wells newell in 1883 round the ring of
roses pots full of posies the one that stoops the last shall tell whom she loves the best
even this 1898 variation collected by alice gome and the dictionary of british folklore differs
substantially from the modern 1881 version recorded in illustrator kate greenway's mother
goose or the old nursery rhymes ring a ring of roses a pocket full of poses upstairs and
downstairs in my lady's chamber husha husha kaku in all these versions the only common elements are
the title ring of roses and the rhyming reference to posies the following lines differ substantially
from the modern version with ash's ashes being either completely absent or variously replaced
with nonsense syllables imitations of sneezing or alternate constructions like red bird bluebird or
green grass yellow grass variations continued to appear well into the 20th
century with this version being recorded among african-american schoolgirls in weirgate texas
in 1939. ring around a rosie pocketful of posies light bread sweet bread squat guess who she told
me mr red was her lover if you love him hug him if you hate him stomp given how dramatically these
lyrics evolved over only 100 years it is unlikely they would have survived unchanged from the time
of the great plagues to the present day and even if we accept that the modern lyrics do indeed
refer to the plague they do a remarkably bad job describing the actual pandemic firstly while
people in the middle ages did indeed carry around flower spices and other fragrant substances to
ward off bad air thought to spread the disease the fact that earlier versions of the song
refer to pots or laps full of posies make this connection tenuous at best second while the theory
claims that the titular ring of roses refers to a ring-shaped rash characteristic of the plague this
is in fact a very rare symptom as is the sneezing supposedly depicted in the line a tissue a tissue
in fact coughing and sneezing are more common to the mnemonic forms of the disease in which
the yesinia pestis bacterium infects the lungs than the fleaborn burning variety third contrary
to the ash's ashes line plague victims weren't ever cremated they were always buried indeed the
catholic church considered cremation sacrilegious as it denied the christian doctrine of the
resurrection of the dead at the last judgment in fact the first modern cremation in britain didn't
take place until 1884 while the catholic church did not lift its ban on cremation until 1963.
and finally while the final line we all fall down appears to be a straightforward reference to dying
many versions of the song like this one from 1883 don't reference falling at all but instead
a kerchie or curtsy to be performed by the singers a ring and ring of roses a pocket full of posies
one for jack one for jim and one for little moses a churchian and churchy out into churchy
all together these many inconsistencies make it unlikely that ring around the rosie was ever
about the plague indeed despite its popularity the plague theory is a remarkably recent one the first
work to make the discordant connection between the innocent nursery rhyme and the disaster was
a 1949 article in the newspaper the observer which included a nuclear-themed parody version
ring a ring a geranium a pocket full of uranium hiroshima all fall down in 1951 folklorists
and nursery rhyme experts iona and peter opie acknowledged the widespread belief that the song
was about the plague but dismissed the theory as dubious later complaining that we ourselves have
had to listen so often to this interpretation that we are reluctant to go out at the house
however the first known work to state the theory as fact is james lisa's book the plague and the
fire published a full decade later in 1961. from there the theory spread like well the plague until
it became accepted as fact but as critics of the theory point out if the hidden meaning of the song
was well known for over 500 years why did it take until the mid-20th century for anyone to write
it down most folklorists have thus dismissed the plague interpretation as folk etymology and have
concluded that the song likely originated in 18th century germany and spread to england the united
states and elsewhere via german immigrants so well if not the plague then what's the song actually
about according to folklorist philip hiscock ring around the rosie is part of a long tradition of
children's play songs intended to get around protestant religious bans on dancing adolescents
found a way around the dancing ban with what was called in the united states the play party play
parties consisted of ring games which differed from square dancers only in their name and their
lack of musical accompaniment they were hugely popular and younger children got into the act too
some modern nursery games particularly those which involve rings of children derive from these play
party games little sally saucer or sally waters is one of them and ring around the rosie seems to
be another the rings referred to in the rhymes are literally the rings formed by the playing children
ash's ashes probably comes from something like hushah husha another common variant which refers
to stopping the ring and falling silent and the falling down refers to the jumble of bodies in
that ring when they just let go of each other and throw themselves into the circle as with the
lyrics of the song the rules of these play parties varied wildly in nearly every variation the last
person to fall down bow or curtsy had to pay some kind of penalty in some versions this involved
hugging or kissing another member of the group while in others the loser moved to the center
of the circle to become the rosie around which the others dance the name rosie is believed to
derive from the french rosier or rose bush while the game itself likely derives from ancient pagan
rituals that involved dancing in circles around sacred trees or bonfires and for more on this
please do check out our video the time british witches tried to stop a nazi invasion using magic
yes really but what do the other lyrics of the song mean it was nothing while some classic
nursery rhymes like old king cole are known to be based on historical figures and events others are
simply fun rhyming nonsense for children to dance and play to as far as folklorists and
etymologists have been able to determine ring around the rosie is one of the latter and likely
has no literal meaning at all but we're humans abhor ambiguity and randomness leading us to
seek out logic and meaning where none exists this rationalizing instinct has resulted in countless
dubious theories seeking to explain the origins of nursery rhymes including this one mary mary quite
contrary how does your garden grow with silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all
in a row one interpretation holds that mary quite contrary of the ryan is none other than queen mary
the first of scotland who attempted to convert england back to catholicism between 1553 and 1558
according to this theory how does your garden grow and silver bells and cockle shells refer to mary's
inability to bear a child while pretty maids in a row is a derogatory reference to catholic nuns
however there is no evidence whatsoever for this particular interpretation and the actual origin
of the song remains unknown not even contemporary works are immune from such over-analysis gallons
of ink have been spilled explaining how l frank baum's the wonderful wizard of oz is in fact a
cleverly disguised allegory for populism in u.s monetary policy while a common urban legend holds
that phil collins's 1981 hit song in the air tonight is actually about an incident collins
witnessed where a man failed to save a drowning victim indeed the beatles became so frustrated
with people trying to find hid a meeting in their lyrics that john lennon and paul
mccartney intentionally wrote 1967's i am the walrus to be as nonsensical and meaningless as
possible with lennon allegedly remarking let the [ __ ] work that one out intriguingly the plague
interpretation of ring around the rosie has taken on a life of its own becoming what folklorists
call meta folklore folklore about folklore despite being thoroughly debunked by folklorists the
theory has nonetheless persisted satisfying as it does both our desire for rational explanations and
our love of the ironic and the macabre and like regular folklore it has evolved over time growing
and changing with each retelling and branched off into numerous distinct variations as mentioned
before some versions of the theory trace the song's origins to the black death of 1346
others to the great plague of 1665. similarly some versions say the song originated in london
while others say it came from i am a village in the english midlands hard-hit by the 1665 plague
some versions even claimed that the children of iron sang the song while dancing around
the bodies of the victims but the one thing all these theories have in common is that they are
all patently false after all as sigmund freud might have put it sometimes a nursery rhyme
it's just a nursery rhyme so i really hope you enjoyed that video if you did please do
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