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Concept
Ring a Ring o' Roses
Summary
"Ring a Ring o' Roses", "Ring a Ring o' Rosie", or (in the United States) "Ring Around the Rosie", is a nursery rhyme, folk song and playground singing game. Descriptions first emerge in the mid-19th century, but are reported as dating from decades before, and similar rhymes are known from across Europe. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7925.
The lyrics vary, but a modern interpretation based on modern lyrics that related the words to the plague in England became widespread post-WWII, even though it appears to be a false folk etymology.
It is unknown what the earliest wording of the rhyme was or when it began. Many versions of the game have a group of children form a ring, dance in a circle around a person, and stoop or curtsy with the final line. The slowest child to do so is faced with a penalty or becomes the "rosie" (literally: rose tree, from the French rosier) and takes their place in the center of the ring.
Common British versions include:
Ring-a-ring o' roses,
A pocket full of posies.
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down!
Common American versions include:
Ring around the rosie,
A pocket full of posies.
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down!
Some versions replace the third line with "Red Bird Blue Bird", "Green Grass-Yellow Grass" or substitute as ending "Sweet bread, rye bread,/ Squat!" Godey's Lady's Book (1882) explains what happens here, giving the variation as "One, two, three—squat!" Before the last line, the children stop suddenly, then exclaim it together, "suiting the action to the word with unfailing hilarity and complete satisfaction".
Common Indian versions end with: "Husha busha!/ We all fall down!"
Variations, corruptions, and vulgarized versions were noted to be in use long before the earliest printed publications. One such variation was dated to be in use in Connecticut in the 1840s. A novel of 1855, The Old Homestead by Ann S. Stephens, records the variation
A ring – a ring of roses,
Laps full of posies;
Awake – awake!
Now come and make
A ring – a ring of roses.
Official source
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