“Ring around the Rosie” Is Not about the Black Death, Nor Has It Ever Been

A popular urban legend that has been circulating for decades now claims that the beloved children’s nursery rhyme “Ring around the Rosie” is actually about the Black Death. Although this may make for a good story, it is, in fact, totally false; the song “Ring around the Rosie” did not even first appear until centuries after the Black Death had been effectively eradicated in England.

The legend

In case you are unfamiliar with the song “Ring around the Rosie,” you should know that it is a popular children’s nursery rhyme throughout the Anglophone world. Here are the lyrics to the version of the song that is most widely known in the United States:

“Ring around the rosie,
Pockets full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.”

There is a popular legend claiming that, supposedly, the “ring around the rosie” mentioned in the first line of the song is actually a description of the buboes on the plague victims’ bodies, that the “posies” from the second line were flowers collected to cover up the stench of rotting corpses, that the “ashes, ashes,” from line three is referring to cremation, and that the “we all fall down” at the end is referring to everyone dying from the plague.

Not old enough to have been composed at the time of the Black Death

This all makes for a spooky campfire story, but the truth is far less sordid. We have absolutely no solid evidence whatsoever that the song “Ring around the Rosie” bears any connection to the Black Death. Furthermore, we have a great deal of evidence that runs directly contrary to the popular interpretation of the song as being about the Black Death.

For instance, an underlying assumption behind the notion that the song is about the Black Death is that the song must have been composed at a time when the Black Death was prevalent. This is incorrect, however; the earliest known version of the song is a German version originally printed in 1796 that goes as follows:

“Ringel ringel reihen,
 Wir sind der Kinder dreien,
 sitzen unter’m Hollerbusch
 Und machen alle Husch husch husch!”

Here is a translation of this verse into English:

“A ring, a ring, a round dance,
We are the children three,
we sit under the elderbush,
and all go hush, hush, hush!”

The earliest possible reference to the song in English that I am currently aware of is a mention in an article from the Brooklyn Eagle dated to 17 March 1846. The article is a description of some of the games played by children, written by an adult who had observed them. The article states:

“Indeed it is whispered that the object of this gathering is the celebration of her birth day—per consequences, she has been elected mistress of ceremonies, which comprise, among other things, the celebrated “Ring o’ Roses.” It was laughable to see the little yellow-haired, butter-chopped laddie take her out of the ring. There she stood, graceful as young faun, her hair parted from the forehead, and flowing in ringlets about her neck, while with downcast eyes and compressed lips, she received the proffered kiss.”

This article mentions that there was a game played by children called “Ring o’ Roses” that involved the children getting into some kind of “ring,” but it makes no mention of a song involved as part of this game.

Possibly the earliest recorded version of the song in English comes the novel The Old Homestead by the American author Ann S. Stephens (lived 1810 – 1886), which was published in 1855. Here is the version of the song from the novel:

“A ring – a ring of roses,
 Laps full of posies;
 Awake – awake!
 Now come and make
 A ring – a ring of roses.”

ABOVE: Portrait of Ann S. Stephens, an American novelist whose book The Old Homestead contains one of the earliest known mentions of a version of the song “Ring around the Rosie” in English

The earliest version of the song that bears a close resemblance to the modern version comes from the 1881 edition of the nursery rhyme book Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes, written by the English collector of folktales and nursery rhymes, Kate Greenaway (lived 1846 – 1901). Here is Greenaway’s version of the song:

“Ring-a-ring-a-roses,
 A pocket full of posies;
 Hush! hush! hush! hush!
 We’re all tumbled down.”

As you can plainly tell, the earliest references to the song in German come from the late eighteenth century and the earliest versions that bear any resemblance to the modern version are from the late 1800s. The Black Death was at its height, however, between 1347 and 1353, around 450 years before the very first mention of the song “Ring around the Rosie” in German. The last major outbreak of the bubonic plague in England was the Great Plague of London, which lasted from 1665 through 1666, around 130 years before the publication of the earliest known version of the song in German.

In order for the song “Ring around the Rosie” to have actually been composed at the time of the Black Death, children would have had to have been singing the song for well over a century without a single person ever writing it down. While this is possible, it seems highly unlikely. Folklorists and antiquarians have been writing down the lyrics to children’s songs ever since at least the time of the ancient Greeks and they were certainly doing it throughout the Early Modern Period.

It therefore makes very little sense to claim that children were singing “Ring around the Rosie” for over a century before anyone thought to write it down. The most parsimonious conclusion is that the song probably originated in Germany the 1790s, around the time when it is first mentioned in the historical record, and was first introduced to the United States by German immigrants in around the middle of the nineteenth century.

ABOVE: Illustration from the 1881 edition of Kate Greenaway’s book Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes depicting children in a circle singing “Ring around the Rosie”

Plague victims were buried, not cremated

In addition to this, it is also abundantly clear that the line “Ashes! Ashes!” cannot be a reference to the cremation of plague victims because people in medieval western Europe did not practice cremation. In medieval times, it was believed that cremation was an act of sacrilege, because it was, in their view, a way of physically proclaiming disbelief in the Christian teaching of the resurrection of the body.

In medieval England, cremation was illegal and, if a person was found to have cremated a body in conjunction with heathen rites, it was even punishable by death. For a person to be cremated was regarded as the uttermost indignity and the act of cremation itself was regarded as an act of heresy. The first legal cremation in Britain since ancient times took place in 1884. The Roman Catholic Church forbade cremation up until 1963, when the ban on cremation was finally lifted.

All victims of the Black Death in medieval western Europe would have been buried, not cremated. Only a modern person who did not know this could possibly interpret that line “Ashes! Ashes!” as being about the cremation of plague victims.

ABOVE: Manuscript illustration by Pierart dou Tielt from c. 1353 depicting the citizens of Tournai burying victims of the Black Death

The history of the Black Death interpretation

If “Ring around the Rosie” were really about the Black Death, you would think that someone would have noticed this a long time ago. Indeed, if it were really about the Black Death, you would think there would be some explanation of this in the earliest sources mentioning the song.

The Black Death interpretation, however, is a very recent one; it has only been around for the past few decades. The earliest known mention of anyone interpreting the song “Ring around the Rosie” as being about the Black Death comes from the book The Plague and the Fire by James Leasor, which was published in 1961, over 165 years after the song was first written down.

When the song was first written down, no one that we know of ever associated it with the Black Death and, as best as I can tell, no one had any reason to. In other words, not only is the song not old enough to have been composed at a time when the Black Death was prevalent, but the Black Death interpretation of the song is not even as old as the song itself.

Alternate versions of the song without the supposed plague references

Finally, as if everything I have already pointed out here were not enough to solidly disprove the interpretation of the song “Ring around the Rosie” as being about the Black Death, it is important to note that the song also has many alternate versions, most of which exclude all of the alleged plague references.

You may have already noticed that most of the parts that have been interpreted as being about the Black Death are entirely absent from the early versions of the song I have quoted in this article. Indeed, the oldest known German version of the song does not include a single one of the supposed plague references except for the part about the “ring of roses.” As it happens, most of the early versions of the song do not contain the parts that have been interpreted as references to the Black Death. For example, in 1883, William Wells Newell published a version of it that goes like this:

“Ring a ring a rosie,
A bottle full of posie,
All the girls in our town,
Ring for little Josie.

Round the ring of roses,
Pots full of posies,
The one stoops the last
Shall tell whom she loves the best.”

Sorry, nothing even remotely plague-y here.

What the song is really about

You may be wondering, “If ‘Ring around the Rosie’ is not about the Black Death, then what is it about?” The answer is that it is a very typical example of a traditional children’s “bowing song.” In many communities in Germany, England, and the United States during the late 1800s, dancing of any sort was considered obscene and immoral.

Children and adolescents would often skirt prohibitions against dancing by instead having so-called “play-parties,” where they would sing songs and essentially square dance around in circles before bowing to each other at the end of the song. Often times, the lyrics to these songs were mostly nonsense.

The final line of the song “Ring around the Rosie” (i.e. the line “we all fall down”) is not an allusion to the mortality rate of the bubonic plague, but rather to the fact that, when this line was sung, it meant the dance was over and all the dancers would bow to each other. Although these “bowing games” were often played by adolescents, they were also sometimes played by small children. Thus, the song “Ring around the Rosie” came to be considered a nursery rhyme.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary”

Most of the time, nursery rhymes are just plain nonsense; they do not have any sort of secret, “hidden” meaning. There is no secret meaning behind “Humpty-Dumpty,” “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” or “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” despite persistent unsupported claims that the latter may have originated as an allegory for slavery. (In actuality, there is no record of the term “black sheep” ever having been a dysphemism for a black person.)

Nonetheless, some folklorists have dared to speculate that some nursery rhymes may have meanings behind them that have been obscured by time. For instance, the poem “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” has been interpreted by some folklorists as possibly being about Queen Mary I of England, otherwise known as the notorious “Bloody Mary.” Here is the version of the poem that is best known in the United States today:

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.”

The part about “Mary” being “quite contrary” is allegedly a reference to Queen Mary I’s attempts to convert England back to Catholicism after her father King Henry VIII (ruled 1509 – 1547) and her half-brother King Edward VI (ruled 1547 – 1553) had already converted it to Protestantism.

The rhetorical question “How does your garden grow?” along with the reference to “cockle shells” is interpreted as a jibe mocking her for her infertility and inability to produce an heir. The “silver bells” allegedly refer to the bells of Catholic monasteries and the “pretty maids all in a row” is allegedly a demeaning insult directed towards Roman Catholic nuns.

Nonetheless, not all folklorists follow this interpretation and many have rejected the idea of a “hidden meaning” behind the poem. Personally, I am highly skeptical of the interpretation that “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” is about Queen Mary I of England; I think the interpretation, like the poem itself, is just plain nonsense.

ABOVE: Portrait of Queen Mary I of England from 1554. Some folklorists think the poem “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” is about Queen Mary I.

The earliest attested version of the poem “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” comes from Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Little Songbook, a collection of English nursery rhymes first published in 1744 in London. Here is the version of the nursery rhyme from that book:

“Mistress Mary, Quite contrary,
 How does your garden grow?
 With Silver Bells, And Cockle Shells,
 And so my garden grows.”

Unlike the early versions of “Ring around the Rosie,” the earliest recorded version of “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” does at least contain most of the parts that are interpreted as references to Queen Mary I of England. It is important to note, though, that Queen Mary I ruled from 1553 to 1558, meaning the earliest attested version of the nursery rhyme comes from around two centuries after her death. This does not necessarily rule out the possibility that the nursery rhyme could be about her, but it does mean that, if it is about her, it was written about her long after her death.

Of course, there is also the problem that the parts that are interpreted as being about Queen Mary I are far from unambiguous. In fact, the interpretation that the poem is about Queen Mary I is not even the only one out there. Other folklorists interpret the poem as being about Mary, Queen of Scots, and others regard it as a satire against Catholicism, with the “Mary” in the poem being Mary, the mother of Jesus. I doubt that any of these interpretations are correct.

ABOVE: The Virgin in Prayer, painted in c. 1650 by the Italian Baroque painter Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato. Some folklorists apparently think the poem “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” is a satire against Catholicism, with the “Mary” in the poem being the Virgin Mary.

“I’ve seen the wolf”

Similarly, the Occitan folk song “Ai Vist lo Lop” (literally “I’ve Seen the Wolf”), which is thought to possibly date to the late Middle Ages, has been interpreted as social critique of medieval society. An English translation reads as follows:

“I’ve seen the wolf, the fox, the hare.
I’ve seen the wolf, the fox dancing,
all three chasing each other ’round the tree
I’ve seen the wolf, the fox dancing
all three chasing each other ’round the tree,
circling the sprouting bush.
Around here, all day is filled with work
all just to earn a few pennies,
but this whole month, I’ve seen nothing;
I saw the wolf, the fox, the hare.
There is nothing at all left for us!
I saw the hare, the fox, the wolf.”

Although the superficial reading of the folk song is nonsensical, many folklorists have interpreted it as an allegory for medieval society; the fox, who represents the peasants, chases after a hare, who represents daily wages, but the fox himself is being chased by the wolf, who represents the local lord. No sooner can the fox capture the hare then is he himself gobbled up by the wolf. The song, therefore, supposedly represents the futility and frustration felt by many medieval serfs.

Other interpretations hold that the wolf represents the king, the fox represents the lord, and the hare represents the church, all three of which deprived medieval peasants of their hard-earned wages. Once again, I am skeptical.

ABOVE: Illustration from a calendar page for the month of August dating to c. 1310 depicting serfs harvesting grain at the direction of a reeve

“The Walrus and the Carpenter”

Popular audiences have a tendency to read too deeply into superficial and arbitrary details from seemingly nonsense poems. This tendency is by no means confined exclusively to nursery rhymes. For example, many have claimed that Lewis Carroll’s famous poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” from his novel Through the Looking Glass, which was published in 1871, is a satire against organized religion. In the 1999 American fantasy comedy film Dogma, the character Loki makes the following claims:

“That poem, ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter,’ that’s an indictment of organized religion. The walrus, with his girth and his good nature, he obviously represents either Buddha, or, or with his tusks, the Hindu elephant god, Lord Ganesha. That takes care of your Eastern religions. Now the carpenter, which is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ, who was raised a carpenter’s son, he represents the Western religions. Now in the poem, what do they do? What do they do? They, they dupe all these oysters into following them and then proceed to shuck and devour the helpless creatures en masse. I don’t know what that says to you, but to me it says that following these faiths based on mythological figures ensures the destruction of one’s inner being.”

To start out with, it makes no sense to interpret a walrus as a reference to the Buddha or Ganesha. If Lewis Carroll meant the walrus to be a caricature of the Buddha, he would have made him a fat man; if he meant the walrus to be a caricature of Ganesha, he would have made him an elephant. The fact that the walrus is neither of these things, but rather a walrus is a pretty good indication that Lewis Carroll did not intend for the walrus to represent either religious figure. Indeed, the fact that even Loki cannot decide whether the walrus represents the Buddha or Ganesha tells us this is an extremely weak interpretation.

Loki interprets the carpenter in the poem as “an obvious reference to Jesus Christ.” In reality, Lewis Carroll himself did not even choose this character; instead, it was chosen by his illustrator Sir John Tenniel from a number of other possible options selected by Carroll simply because they fit the meter of the poem, including one which was a “butterfly.” Clearly, the reason there is a carpenter in the poem is not because the carpenter is supposed represent Jesus, but rather because the word “carpenter” just happened to fit the meter of the poem.

Furthermore, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the man who wrote the Alice in Wonderland books under the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll,” was a lifelong devout Anglican who worked for the Church of England nearly his entire adult life and was characterized by his contemporaries as extremely religiously and politically conservative. The notion that he, of all people, would write “an indictment of organized religion” is simply incompatible with his biography. The interpretation of the poem as a satire on religion, therefore, is clearly just as spurious as the interpretation of “Ring around the Rosie” as being about the Black Death.

ABOVE: Illustration of “The Walrus and the Carpenter” by Sir John Tenniel for the original edition of Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Conclusion

The song “Ring around the Rosie” is definitely not about the Black Death. The version of the song that is best known today is first attested in the late nineteenth century at a time when the Black Death was no longer prevalent in the English-speaking world. Furthermore, the Black Death interpretation of the song can only be traced back to the 1960s, over a century and a half after the song was first written down in German. Finally, most early versions of the song do not include the parts that have been interpreted as references to the Black Death.

Although there are some folklorists who do think that some nursery rhymes may have meanings that have been obscured by time, I am personally highly skeptical of all attempts to find hidden meanings in nursery rhymes altogether.