Ring a Ring O'Roses

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"Ring a Ring O'Roses" or "Ring Around the Rosie" is a nursery rhyme or children's song and game that first appeared in print in 1881 but was recited to the current tune at least as early as the 1790s.^[1][2]

Contents 1 Words 2 Plague interpretation 3 Appearances in popular culture 4 External links

[edit] Words

In the 1881 edition of Mother Goose it appears as:

Ring a ring o' roses,

A pocketful of posies.

Tisha! Tisha!

We all fall down.

In the UK, it is usually sung like this:

Ring a ring o'roses

A pocketful of posies

ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo (imitative of sneezing)

We all fall down.

Several other verses exist, although they are not as commonly known:

The King has sent his daughter

To fetch a pail of water

ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo

We all fall down.

The bird up on the steeple

Sits high above the people

ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo

We all fall down.

The cows are in the meadow

Lying fast asleep

ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo

We all jump up again.

In some areas of the UK, a second verse is also added;

Ashes in the water, ... all the children stoop down and swish their hands on the floor

Ashes in the sea, ... continue the same motion

We all jump up,

With a one, two three! ... everyone jumps into the air with their hands up

In Ireland, it is usually sung thus:

Ring around the 'rosies

A pocketful of posies

ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo (imitative of sneezing)

We all fall down.

The most common variation of the song in the USA:

Ring around the rosies

Pocketful of posies

Ashes, ashes

We (or They) all fall down

In the Southern U.S. (most specifically, in Louisiana), it is usually sung as thus:

Ring around the rosey

Pocket full of posies

Upstairs, downstairs

We all fall down

In Canada, it is usually sung as thus:

Ring around the rosey

A pocket full of posies

Husha, husha (imitative of sneezing)

We all fall down

In Australia, it is usually sung thus:

Ring a ring a rosy

A pocketful of posies

ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo (imitative of sneezing)

We all fall down.

Sometimes the third line is changed to:

Husha, husha

As opposed to ashes, ashes or a variation thereof.

Sometimes the verses are added:

Cows are in the meadow

Eating buttercups

ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo

We all jump up

or:

Cows are in the meadow

Eating all the grass

ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo

Who's up last (all jump up)

or:

Bringing up the posies

We all pop up!

Children stand in a circle holding hands and skipping in one direction, clockwise or counter-clockwise, as they sing the song. At the end of the last line, the group falls down into a heap.

[edit] Plague interpretation

A popular interpretation^[3] alleges that the rhyme is connected with the Great Plague of London in 1665, or perhaps earlier outbreaks of bubonic plague in England.^[4] All available evidence and research suggests Ring a Ring O'Roses was not linked to the plague until the 20th century.^[5] Regardless, this interpretation has entered into popular culture and is often used to reference the plague obliquely.^[6]

This purported plague link seems to originate with the movement for finding origins of folk-songs, which was popular in the early 20th century.^[7] For example, according to the common forms of the plague interpretation, the 'falling down' has always involved dropping to the ground as the rhyme is recited, evoking the death from the plague. This conjecture has evolved into a complex explanation suggesting possible plague interpretations for every line. For other attempts to attribute 'hidden meaning' to other such rhymes see Sing a Song of Sixpence, Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, and Cock Robin.

According to this interpretation, the first line evokes the round red rash that would break out on the skin of plague victims. The second line's "pocket full of posies" would have been a pocket in the garment of a victim filled with something fragrant, such as flowers that aimed to conceal the smell from the sores and the dying people. A second creative explanation for this line is that it referred to the purported belief that fresh-smelling flowers, nosegays, and pomanders would purify the air around them thus warding off disease, or that they would invoke sneezing, the idea being that sneezing helps to prevent contraction of the disease. A third possibility includes the idea that "posies" are derived from an Old English word for pus, in which case the pocket would be referring to the swelling sore. "Ashes, ashes" would refer to when people alive and dead were gathered up into piles and lit on fire in a belief that burning the diseased bodies would not allow the disease to spread. Several alternate endings to the song exist, one being: "atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down," interpreted as invoking the sneezing before "we all fall down," the eventual succumbing to death.

European and 19th century versions of the rhyme suggest that this 'fall' was not a literal falling down, but a curtsy or other form of bending movement that was common in other dramatic singing games.^[8] Moreover, due to the wide variety of versions sharing the same dance and the same tune, the Opies and many scholars since conclude that the tune and the dance-game form the core of 'Ring a Ring O'Roses', rather than the words which are popular today. Before 1898 there appeared to be no English-language standardisation of the words, and Lady Gomme^[9] collected 12 versions of the game, only one of which is similar to the ones that are conjecturally linked to the plague.

The plague interpretation is generally considered to be a recent innovation.^[10] It is first cited in 1951 by Peter and Iona Opie.^[11] It thus forms an important reference for 20th and 21st century culture, but has never been authentically linked to any early version of the rhyme. In this sense, the origin of the Ring a Ring O'Roses is likely to be unrelated to the plague.

[edit] Appearances in popular culture

In the 1970 film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, a group of children sings an ironic, post-apocalyptic version of the nursery rhyme:

Ring-a ring o' neutrons;
A pocketful of positrons;
A fission! A fission!
We all fall down.

In the film V for Vendetta, the rhyme is graphically represented by a ring of children holding hands and dancing in a circle within a memorial for the casualties of a biological attack on the United Kingdom.

In the episode of Star Trek (the original series) named And The Children Shall Lead (episode #60), when the children are found on Triacus with all their parents dead, they are holding hands and dancing in a circle while singing this song.

The rhyme was heavily featured in the very first serial of Sapphire and Steel, where it was used as a "trigger" to allow time to break through into the present day. Several characters who are mentioned in the rhyme, as well as a person who appears to have the plague, appear as ghosts.

In the episode "Dance of the Dead" of the Showtime show Masters of Horror, the rhyme was sung by children as a foreshadowing and emphasis of the biological warfare featured in the episode. In flashback sequences, a young girl remembers her birthday one year when "blitz" fell from the sky and ate away at the flesh of her friends.

The Irish American Celtic punk band Flogging Molly uses the "Ring a ring a rosey" in the song "The Rare Ould Times." From the album "Drunken Lullabies." This song originally by Pete St. John

The nu metal band Korn incorporated the song into one of their singles called "Shoots and Ladders" on their self-titled album. Dave Matthews of Dave Matthews Band also sings this rhyme as a verse in the song "Gravedigger" (Found on Some Devil, 2003.) A third musical reference is in Pink Floyd's track "Take It Back" from their 1994 The Division Bell album, which incorporates the rhyme.

On the episode "Dark Harvest" of the television show Invader Zim, the character of Miss Bitters devotes one of her classes to explaining the bubonic plague origins of the rhyme in a particularly menacing manner.

In the game Prey, during one level, the ghosts of possessed children sing the song in a sinister manner before attacking.

In the movie Mission: Impossible 2 the character of Doctor Nekhorvich sees some children singing this song shortly after he injects himself with a deadly bio-engineered virus to smuggle it out of a lab. The image of the children dancing slows down and appears haunting, reflecting Nekhorvich's awareness of the dangers of the plague he carries.

The medieval folk band "The Soil Bleeds Black" interprets this song in the album "Mirror of the Middle Ages".

The song "House of Wolves" by My Chemical Romance quotes the line in the poem, "Ring around the ambulance" (instead of rosie) and "Ashes to ashes, we all fall down".

[edit] External links