h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After a challenge given to me in that old '12 days of xmas' page thing, I did an article about 'Ring-a-ring o' roses'.
http://www.h2g2.com/A182107

If you read it, you can just see the comtempt I was feeling at the time. I ran the rhyme through my head a few times and thought yuck! So, if you lot want, I can replace the spite with more facts, if y'like.

The version i've always heard isn't much different, but just for the record:
"Ring around the rosies,
Pocket full of posies,
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down!"

Michigan, U.S.A.

That's the same one I learned, and these were the explanations for the alternate lines (as I remember):

"Ring around the rosies" the rosy refers to the pink splotches that appeared on the skin. I've always assumed there was a line around them, but I'm not sure on that so don't count it in.

"Ashes, ashes" the best way to make sure the corpses weren't contagious was to burn them. I believe they made mass graves and burnt them.

My .02 cents

Hey, that's pretty good! I'll add it to my article l8ter tonight.

Actually, I got a big book in my house. And it's got the histories to various nursery rhymes. Suppose I'd better dig it up...

a ring of roses was for the round series of pink dots that appear - in rings
the pocket full of posies was becuase the people thought the nice smells would ward off plague and also becuase it masked the rotting death smells
the atishoo (not ashes) was becuase the sneezes were the symptoms that started you on the way to death
and the fall down is death

I read an *incredibly* macabre version somewhere...
Ring-a-ring of Geraniums
A pocket full of uranium
Hiro-shima
we all fall down

I LOVE THAT!!!

Aender,

I'd like to know where you got the "atcho" thing. I'm pretty sure the original was "ashes". It makes a lot more sense.

Personally I've always found it makes more sense with the atishoo bit, but that's because I've been brought up with it.

Seeing as the 'ashes' version of told overseas, and not in the UK, we have to figure out which varient came first. And seeing as the Plague was pretty much a European thing (originating in Asia), I figure that 'atishoo' came first.

Yep. I was thinking that too, right after I posted actually. I'd still be interested to know which came first though.

There is a school of thought that this here rhyme doesn't relate to the plauge at all (oh no a heretic ) but to more of a childrens dancing game started in the 19th Century when there were restrictions on having a good time - darn puritans.
For a much bigger discussion on this look to: http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/ring_around_the_rosie.html

There was a second verse I was taught as a child

Ashes in the water,
ashes in the sea,
Ashes in the dustbin,
Up jumps me.

There's a poet whose name always eludes me (except that I'm pretty sure there are eight letters in it total, his surname begins with an H and has an L in it, and his first name is Paul, but I could be wrong about any of that) who did that to nursery rhymes—nuked them, if you will. He did it to Hey Diddle Diddle, and to Little Miss Muffet, which went something like

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on her tuffet
[doing... something...]
There dropped (from a glider)
an H-bomb beside her
and frightened Miss Muffet to bits.

I'll find that someday.
They're both printed in a book called Reflections on an Gift of Watermelon Pickle, I think.

Little Miss Muffet
Crouched on her tuffet
Collecting her shell-shocked wits
There dropped (from a glider)
an H-bomb beside her
Which frightened Miss Muffet to bits.

Right. Now.

Er. Just didn't want to leave anybody hanging. Just in case. Anyway, when I find the other stuff I was talking about, I'll post it in my Journal, where it's more relevant. Sorry.

Now. Ring Around the Rosie, yeah, that's how I learned it too.

I love that lil's miss muff-muncher. Maybe the dudes in charge of this 'call for entries' thing would like to compile a short list of rhymes like this?

Join the club - I always used to sing the following:

Ring-o-ring-o-roses,
A pocket full of posies,
Atishoo! Atishoo!
We all fall down!

The cows are in the meadows
eating buttercups
atishoo atishoo
we all jump up!