Ring Around the Rosie

DESCRIPTION: Singing game, with lyrics something like "Ring around the rosie, A pocket full of posies, Ashes, ashes, We all fall down."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1881 (_Kate Greenway's Mother Goose_, according to Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame)
KEYWORDS: nonballad playparty
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,NE,SE,So) Britain(England(All)) Ireland Canada(Newf) New Zealand
REFERENCES (18 citations):
Linscott-FolkSongsOfOldNewEngland, pp. 49-50, "Ring Around ' Rosies" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 227, "Ring Around the Rosy" (1 text, tune referenced)
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H48c, pp. 10-11, "Ring a Ring o' Roses" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brady-AllInAllIn, p. 12, "Ring-a-ring-a-rosie" (1 text)
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 69, "Ring-a-ring-a-rosy" (1 text)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 443, "Ring-a-ring o' roses" (4 texts)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 48, "Ring a Ring o' Roses" (13 texts, 1 tune)
Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren, #62, "Ring Around the Rosie" (4 short texts, 1 tune)
Solomon-ZickaryZan, p. 26, "RIng-around-the-Rosy" (1 text, buried in the notes)
Byington/Goldstein-TwoPennyBallads, p. 115, "Ring Around a Rosy" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5, p. 536, "Ring Around the Rosy" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #639, p. 253, "(Ring-a-ring-a-roses)"
Sutton-Smith-NZ-GamesOfNewZealandChilden/FolkgamesOfChildren, p. 20, "(Ring a ring a rosie" (1 text plus a "Pop goes the weasel" variant)
Jack-PopGoesTheWeasel, p. 180, "Ring-a-RIng o' Roses" (4 texts)
Dolby-OrangesAndLemons, p. 146, "Ring-a-Ring o' Roses" (2 texts)
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, post 4, "(Ring-a-ring o' roses)" (1 short text, from user John5918, posted August 28, 2021)
ADDITIONAL: Ron Young, _Dictionary of Newfoundland and Labrador_, Downhome Publishing Inc., 2006, p. 259, "(Ring Around the Rosy)" (1 short text)
ADDITIONAL: Tim Devlin, _Cracking Humpty Dumpty: An Investigative Trail of Favorite Nursery Rhymes_, Susak Press, 2022, pp. 111-119, "Ring a Ring o'Roses" (1 text plus many variants and alternate sources)
ST PHCF227a (Full)
Roud #7925
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "Ring Around the Rosie" (on PeteSeeger33, PeteSeegerCD03)
SAME TUNE:
Poor Old Pilot (File: WJL085)
NOTES [281 words]: The words cited here are the ones I learned (I don't remember playing the game, but I've heard the song), and Pankake's text is almost identical. Presumably this is the form most common in the American Midwest. Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren, however, cites older (and presumably more original) forms, and Gomme offers a variety with quite diverse refrains.
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose notes that some have connected this to the Great Plague, and Devlin, pp. 111-112, lists some of those who have suggested it. But the Baring-Goulds also observe that this is a very weak link, denied by most who have seriously studied the matter. The Opies merely state that it goes back the *time* of the plague -- and offer no direct proof even of that. The Opies also cite some possible non-English parallels; those which are in languages I can read do not strike me as truly parallel. But Devlin, pp. 115-116, also sees a strong parallel to the German version he prints on p. 116.
Devlin, pp. 117-119, has details on how the plague idea came to be popular in a very short span of time.
John Kelly, The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time, Harper Collins, 2005, pp. 20-21, has more explanation than most. According to him, the "ashes, ashes" of the third line are a reference to the bruiseline purple blotches which appeared on the bodies of some victims. These were known as "God's tokens" because they indicated that the sufferer was soon to die. He does, however, point out that this symptom is very rarely observed in modern plague. So this is a pretty weak link. Plus many versions don't have the "ashes" line. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: PHCF227a

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