A Conversation for The Plague

Nursery rhymes

Post 1

NAITA (Join ViTAL - A1014625)

NAITA's first law of 'facts': always check the Urban Legends Reference page http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.htm

There's no evidence that ring-a-ring-of-roses has anything to do with the plague.
smiley - devil


Nursery rhymes

Post 2

Yes,I am the Lady Lowena!Get with the programme...

i just came here to say exactly the same thing.But I had a different urban legend page.Its a reasoably tired old debate but at What point do these become acceptable truths ,I wonder? This same myth was being promulgated in the London Dungeons when I first went there many years ago.


Nursery rhymes

Post 3

Bez (arguaby the finest figure of a man ever found wearing Bez's underwear) <underpants>

Little evidence but:

"Ring-a-ring of roses," - supposedly represents the markings
"A pocket full of posies." - During the plague in the mid 17th century it was thaught to be transmitted by smell by some, who carried flowers to smell instead.
"Atishoo-atishoo, we all fall down!" - I doubt sneezing has a lot to do with bubonic plague, but in that year it was also bitterly cold, and many people caught pneumonic plague, which does involve sneezing.

"Ashes in the water, ashes in the sea." - The plague was greatly aleviated in London by it's burning down (and London is a port).
"We all jump up with a 1-2-3". - Plague has never really hit so badly since then.

Not exactly conclusive, but it definately fits, so whilst it may not date back to it, I'd have said that it seems to be about it.


Nursery rhymes

Post 4

NAITA (Join ViTAL - A1014625)

It "fits", with that particular version, with very inconclusive interpretations.
As with all nursery rhymes that are passed on as oral tradition there are many, widely divergent, versions. 'Ring around a rosie' first appears in print in Mother Goose or The Old Nursery Rhymes in 1881. The idea that it represents the plague doesn't occur anywhere until James Leasor's The Plague and the Fire in 1961. (All according to the ULRP.)

A just as good interpretation, with no mention of plague, is mentioned in the above ULRP article linked in the first post, I quote:
"Folklorist Philip Hiscock suggests:

The more likely explanation is to be found in the religious ban on dancing among many Protestants in the nineteenth century, in Britain as well as here in North America. 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 dances 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. "Ashes, ashes" probably comes from something like "Husha, 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 let go of each other and throw themselves into the circle."


Nursery rhymes

Post 5

Munchkin

Buttery fudge!!! Well there goes almost thirty years of rock steady knowledge. Rock a by baby better be about Charles II or I will go in a huff. smiley - grr


Nursery rhymes

Post 6

Rip Cobalt, man of action

For the intrepid (hey, Lady Lowena said "promulgate") who has no BullSh**-o-meter, I filter my Urban Legend suspects here: http://www.urbanlegends.com/ . I send this URL out to folks who send me those "send this on to everyone you know blah blah blah...." sort of messages.
Funny sort of side note: when i left this article to do a google search for some images of the Death Carts (think "bring out your dead") I got a very pythonesque (hey, Lady Lowena used "promulgate") result. The sponsored links at the top of the page will take your search term and wrap some commercial sites blurb around it. This time two links said "Get great deals on Death Carts..."
I thought it was funny, guess it comes from my years gathering in the dead while working as a paramedic in the mid-U.S.


Nursery rhymes

Post 7

Yes,I am the Lady Lowena!Get with the programme...

'Bid for promulgate on e-bay!'


Nursery rhymes

Post 8

Yes,I am the Lady Lowena!Get with the programme...

And 'speed bonny boat' had better be about drug smuggling on the Tay or


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