This is an update of an article I wrote a number years ago on the Plague - Ring around the Rosie connection. It's too long to post in a single piece, so I'll break it down. The long quotation near the end is from the most recent article I've read debunking the story, and has some links to a few of the sources claiming a link. I suspect there are even more now, in 2020, because, you know, pandemic.

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I remember the first time I heard the explanation of the "real meaning" of "Ring around the Rosie." It was at a historical talk I was helping present to a group of fourth graders, and a fellow participant gave the kids an explanation that, to my ears, made some sense: this rhyme referred to the Black Death. Doubtless, many of you will have heard it:

---"Ring around the Rosie"--refers to a red mark, supposedly the first sign of the plague

---"A pocket full of posies"-- refers to sachets of herbs carried to ward off infection

---"Ashes, ashes" --either a reference to the cremation of plague victims or to the words said in the funeral Mass..."Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Sometimes line three is rendered as "Atischoo, atischoo"--sneezing, another sign of infection.

---"We all fall down." -- The Plague was not selective in its victims; both rich and poor, young and old, succumbed.

This explanation is seemingly plausible. Many rhymes and fairy tales are quite old; and tales which the modern reader might consider "gruesome" were certainly in circulation in the Middle Ages and early modern era. Why not this one? I know I passed it on myself a number of times. However, a quick check of Snopes quickly debunks the plague origins theory. (1)

I know a number of people have read this explanation in credible (or seemingly so) sources such as medical journals and Smithsonian magazine. Many have also seen reference made to it in history programs on TV or YouTube and the like. Surely, these people have done their research! Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case. Even academics sometimes spread misinformation, especially tasty tidbits like this one. So, where to turn for a reliable explanation? The people who spend their lives studying the oral and written tradition of rhymes like this one are folklorists, and it is to them that we should look for evidence of the rhyme's antiquity and origins.

But first, a bit of historical background. The "plague" usually referred to by those who give this explanation is the Black Death of 1347-50, which killed perhaps 1/3 of the population of Europe and had a decided effect on literature and art of the period. Those who are familiar with Boccaccio's Decameron will know, for instance, that the setting for this series of stories is a country villa where several people have fled to escape the plague. In visual art, the "dance of death", featuring skeletons leading people of all classes to their death, became common in both secular and sacred art.

Sometimes, the plague referenced in the rhyme is said to be the Great Plague of London of 1665-6, the last major outbreak of plague in the English-speaking world. Once again, we have many firsthand accounts of this calamity—even more than in the earlier outbreak, since literacy was more widespread by the 17th century.

From a purely historical standpoint, there are inherent difficulties in attributing the rhyme as far back as the 14th century. There are no references to this rhyme in contemporary literature, artwork, or the like that I have been able to discover. The same goes for the 17th century. If the rhyme is that old, it would be expected that someone would have mentioned it somewhere between the 14th century and the 19th; even if it were only a few words tossed off as an aside. Yet, no one does, despite the fact that antiquarians began collecting such material in the 18th century and publishing it. As Philip Hiscock, a folklorist associated with the Folklore and Language Archive at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, states, "English antiquarians have been bringing together, publishing, and discussing traditional rhymes, songs, and stories for over three hundred years. It does seem odd they might have missed this one."(2)

There are also problems with the interpretation itself. First, a red mark is not a sign of the plague; red marks are seen in a variety of other infectious diseases (rubella being perhaps the best known), but not in any variety (bubonic, septicemic, or pneumonic) of plague. Secondly, both explanations of the third line are problematic. Plague victims were not cremated--not in 1347-50, and not in 1665-6. Cremation is a relatively recent practice in Western Europe, even when large numbers of dead were involved. (3). The other interpretation, involving sneezing, is a problem because sneezing was associated only with the pneumonic version of the plague, which did not represent the majority of cases. Pneumonic plague, while caused by the same bacterium as bubonic plague, is more virulent and attacks the respiratory system directly. Even in these cases, coughing is the more frequently-observed symptom.

So let us turn to the evolution of the rhyme itself. The first reported version of the rhyme is in William Wells Newell's Games and Songs of American Children, 1883. Wells dates it to 1790 in New Bedford, Mass., and it goes as follows:

Ring a ring a rosie

A bottle full of posie

All the girls in our town

Ring for little Josie.(4)

Notice here in this earliest version (which is still more than 100 years after the last cited outbreak of the plague in England in 1665) how difficult it would be to interpret this as having anything to do with the plague.

The earliest published version is in Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose, (1881). It goes as follows:

Ring-a-ring o' roses,

A pocket full of posies,

Hush! hush! hush! hush!

We're all tumbled down. (5)

There are numerous other variants in the late 19th and early 20th century extant in collections of children's rhymes and songs. Here are two of them:

Ring-a-ring o' roses

A pocket full of posies,

One for Jack, and one for Jim,

and one for Little Moses

A-tischa! a-tischa! a-tischa! (6)

Ring, a ring o' roses,

A pocket full o' posies;

Up-stairs and down-stairs,

In my lady's chamber--

Husher! Husher! Cuckoo! (7)

(to be continued...)