Ring a Ring o' Roses

History & Origin

"Ring a Ring o' Roses" is one of the most famous nursery rhymes in the English language, and also one of the most misrepresented. The persistent popular belief that the rhyme is a secret code about the Black Death or the Great Plague — the "ring" being the rosy rash, the "posies" being herbs carried against infection, the sneezing a symptom, the falling down representing death — has been thoroughly investigated by folklorists and found to be without foundation.

The rhyme was first printed in 1881, more than five centuries after the Black Death, and there is no documented evidence of it in the intervening centuries. The plague-origin theory appears to have been first published in 1961 and spread through repetition rather than evidence. Peter and Iona Opie, the foremost authorities on British nursery rhymes, dismissed it as a modern invention.

The rhyme is, in all probability, exactly what it appears to be: a singing circle game in which children hold hands and spin, then fall down together on the final line. The "a-tishoo" is simply a sneeze, and the falling down is the game. It was first printed in 1881 but may be older.

Our fun-punk arrangement gives it the energy the game demands.