Is ring-around the rosies really a death song?

Answer 1

yes ring around the Rosie is a death song if you listen to the song the part that says a pocket full of posies posies is a flower they put in your coffin so u still smell good and ashes ashes we all fall down means a burning house and every one in the house dies.

It is also about the Black Plague

One of the first signs was red rings surrounding a rosey bump. Hence "Ring around the rosey,". "Pocket full of posies," Some people may have carried around pockets full of posies because the stench was so bad. Some also thought that it could cure them. "Ashes, ashes" is due to the tremendous numbers of dead people, which bodies were burned. "We all fall down." Do you really need an explanation for that one?

Answer 2

No. Ring Around the Roses is thought to be associated with death because it is believed to be describing the Bubonic Plague. However, there is no evidence to support this idea, so it is probably not true.

Singing or repeating the rhyme certainly doesn't cause death.

Answer 3

Contrary to what many believe this is NOT about the plague. Like many attempts to attribute precise historical meaning to nursary rhymes this doesn't 'hold water'. It was first advanced in 1961 by the popular novelist James Leasor in his racy account of life in seventeenth-century London, The Plague and the Fire. Until then there was no obvious connection (and absolutely no evidence) that the rhyme had been sung in this form for almost 400 years as a way of preserving the traumas of the plague.

That's because it hadn't. The very earliest recorded version comes from Massachusetts in 1790:

Ring a ring a rosie

A bottle full of posie,

All the girls in our town

Ring for little Josie.

There French, German and even Gaelic version. Several have a second verse where everyone gets up again; others mention wedding bells, pails of water, birds, steeples, Jacks, Jills and other favourite nursary images. The most likely theory behind this nursary rhyme is that it developed with the ring game 'Ring a ring o' roses' (as ring-games were a staple-element of parties in a Protestant, eighteenth-century Brittain and America where dancing was forbidden), which still prevales as one of the most common ring games to this date.

Answer 4

No. Pepole think it's about the plague, but this is just an urban myth.

The first recorded version of Ring A Ring Of Roses dates to 1881, when it appeared in Kate Greenaway's edition of Mother Goose:

Ring-a-ring-a-roses,

A pocket full of posies;

Hush! hush! hush! hush!

We're all tumbled down.

It was however, referred to twenty six years prior to that in Ann S Stephen's novel The Old Homestead, which describes children playing 'Ring Ring A Rosy' in New York.

In 1883 William Newell reported two versions in America, and claimed that one version was current in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1790:

Ring a ring a Rosie,

A bottle full of posie,

All the girls in our town

Ring for little Josie.

Also in 1883, versions were recorded in England which included the now familiar sneezing motif, for example:

A ring, a ring o' roses,

A pocket full o'posies-

Atch chew! atch chew!

In 1892 Alice Gomme listed twelve versions, including one like the version currently sung in Britain:

Ring a-ring o' roses,

A pocketful of posies.

a-tishoo!, a-tishoo!.

We all fall down.

After World War II, historians began to claim that there was a connection between the rhyme and the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1665, or possibly even the outbreak of the 1300s. However, these claims are generally regarded to be incorrect because of the lateness of this explanation arising, the fact that the symptoms of plague do not actually match the words of the song, and that earlier and foreign language variations of the song do not match up to the theory.

There are however, many people who still subscribe to this theory, despite the fact that it is highly improbable that it's correct. For more, please use the link below.

Answer 5

No. Pepole think it's about the plague, but this is just an urban myth.

The first recorded version of Ring A Ring Of Roses dates to 1881, when it appeared in Kate Greenaway's edition of Mother Goose:

Ring-a-ring-a-roses,

A pocket full of posies;

Hush! hush! hush! hush!

We're all tumbled down.

It was however, referred to twenty six years prior to that in Ann S Stephen's novel The Old Homestead, which describes children playing 'Ring Ring A Rosy' in New York.

In 1883 William Newell reported two versions in America, and claimed that one version was current in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1790:

Ring a ring a Rosie,

A bottle full of posie,

All the girls in our town

Ring for little Josie.

Also in 1883, versions were recorded in England which included the now familiar sneezing motif, for example:

A ring, a ring o' roses,

A pocket full o'posies-

Atch chew! atch chew!

In 1892 Alice Gomme listed twelve versions, including one like the version currently sung in Britain:

Ring a-ring o' roses,

A pocketful of posies.

a-tishoo!, a-tishoo!.

We all fall down.

After World War II, historians began to claim that there was a connection between the rhyme and the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1665, or possibly even the outbreak of the 1300s. However, these claims are generally regarded to be incorrect because of the lateness of this explanation arising, the fact that the symptoms of plague do not actually match the words of the song, and that earlier and foreign language variations of the song do not match up to the theory.

There are however, many people who still subscribe to this theory, despite the fact that it is highly improbable that it's correct. For more, please use the link below.

Answer 6

The origins of "Ring Around the Rosie" as a death song are debated among scholars. Some theories suggest the song has connections to the Black Plague, while others argue it is simply a nursery rhyme with no dark origins. The true meaning may never be definitively known.