"Ring Around the Rosie" (My thought process)

2 months ago
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Connecting the Clandestine dots via Cohort relationships:
https://juxtaposition1.substack.com/p/ring-around-the-rosie-my-thought

The rhyme was part of "play parties" where children would sing and move in circles, simulating courtship and crushes, often featuring a child in the middle as a "rosie" or rosebush, symbolizing love.

Anyway, some of you might have been told this innocent nursery rhyme was about the Black Death that swept England in the 14th century. The rosies were the red marks of the bubonic plague, while the posies were the flowers plague doctors used to lessen the stench of death all around. The ashes were supposed to represent the cremated bodies of those who died from the great plague, and the falling down meant, well, falling down dead.

The Library of Congress notes that the first mention of "Ring Around the Rosie" and the plague comes in the middle of the 20th century, 700 years after the bubonic plague. The origins of the song seem to be in Germany in the late 18th century, with other versions also found in Switzerland and Italy.

"Ring Around the Rosie" doesn't arrive on British shores until the 1880s, as far as historians can tell. And England's last brush with the bubonic plague was in the Middle Ages in 1665, more than 200 years prior.
https://people.howstuffworks.com/ring-around-rosie-meaning.htm

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