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This rhyme I felt I already knew for sure the origin behind. Indeed, even when discussing this project with a friend, they remarked “Oh, like how Ring a Ring o' Roses was sung about the black plague in London?” to which I nodded without hesitation. However, it would seem that this is a contested “fact” and does indeed seem to fall into the “urban legend” category. In fact, as stated by Simpson and Roud in the Oxford dictionary of English Folklore, this belief (of the rhyme’s origins) has no evidence to back it up and is “almost certainly nonsense.”. They give several points of evidence. Firstly, that the rhyme does not seem to appear in print before 1881, therefore quite late for nursery rhymes which have a tendency to pop up in the earlier eighteenth century tomes such as Tommy Thumb's song book if they are older, these being the first collections of early rhymes. Therefore it is unusual for a nursery rhyme NOT to appear during the late 1700s if it was an old one and 1881 is very late. Secondly, and agreed by Opie and Opie, the well-known "folkloreists" who wrote the Oxford dictionary of nursery rhymes, amongst other titles, that the theory of it being attributable to the black plague is only traceable to 1951, and that before then, it was not considered such.
Firstly, a quick overview of the Bubonic Plague is in order. Many people might believe that the black
death first appeared in 1665 in London, but this is not the case. In fact, it was already rife in Europe in the 1300s. Its main symptoms were blackening of the skin in patches (ring of roses?), inflamed glands, vomiting, headaches and then death. In London, 1665, it not so much as broke out again, but increased in deadliness. London was a crowded and dirty place to be and so gave the perfect environment for the plague to gain a stronghold, such as it did. Germs travelled quickly and so this, the main and last London outbreak spread quickly not just throughout London, but throughout England entirely, killing thousands of people in its wake. It should be noted here, in discussion of this rhyme, that sneezing was not one of the main symptoms of the plague, although some experts believe that its final stage might have included coughing up blood. The pocket full of posies could also be attributed to plague symptoms, where frightened citizens took to carrying “nosegays” (little bunches of flowers) to both ward off the disease and to cover the stench which would have been horrendous.
Here it can be argued then, that the words of the rhyme do seem to fit rather nicely with the symptoms of the plague, so what could be the reason for the nay-sayers?
Firstly, the fact that the rhyme was not known before 1881 is an important point. Whilst it is true that many children’s rhymes were being repeated from person to person for sometimes hundreds of years before they were recorded, it is also true that the tradition of recording them to paper began perhaps a hundred years before this in the late eighteenth century (1700s). It seems very strange that when publications such as Tommy Thumb’s Songbook, Tom Tit, and Mother Goose Melody were already old news, this particular ditty was simply “missed”. This is especially true if it did indeed date back to the plague years, as to have survived such a length of time, it would have to have been at least fairly well-known.
Another argument against this theory is the vast amount of variation in the wording of this rhyme. In 1898, for example, twelve different versions were recorded by Lady Gomme. Other versions include:Ring a ring a roses, a pocket full of posies, one for me, one for you and one for little Moses.Ring a ring a roses, a pocket full of posies, ash-a, ash-a, all stand downRing a ring a roses, a pocket full of posies, The king comes, the king comes, all bow down!And so on…As is stated by Opie and Opie, despite how the 1881 version is the most well-known, there is no evidence to prove definitively that this was the original version.
Finally, it is worth noting that, especially during the 1900s, “ring games” were on the rise. These games were played by children, and often involved holding hands and dancing in a ring, whilst
singing or chanting a song. Examples of this are “In and out the dusty bluebells”: an English song-game said to be influenced by the hiring of young people by farmers for the summer months at the May fair. “The Farmer’s in his den” (or dell, or field) is a German rhyme originally from the 1820s, and “A tisket, a tasket” is an American variant of this type of game about a lost letter. All of the games had in common that they also contained a task, or action to perform. Opie and Opie, in their 1985 book “The singing game”, discuss how Ring a Ring o' Roses can be much likened to these other games, and that the “fall down” or “bow down” at the final line might in fact simply be the action.
To conclude this entry then, whilst the subject matter of Ring a Ring o' roses might allude to the black plague, it is unlikely that it dates from it. Most likely, it is a Victorian children’s rhyme from a singing, or ring, game.
Sources:
Baring-Gould, William Stuart, and Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose, Nursery Rhymes Old And New, Arr. And Explained By William S. Baring-Gould & Ceil Baring-Gould, 1st edn (New York: C.N. Potter, 1962)
Gomme, Alice Bertha Merck, The Traditional Games Of England, Scotland, And Ireland, 2nd edn ( Dover, 1894) (Ebook available: https://archive.org/details/traditionalgames02gommuoft )Gurton, Gammer, "Gammer Gurton's Garland, Or, The Nursery Parnassus : A Choice Collection Of Pretty Songs And Verses For The Amusement Of All Little Good Children Who Can Neither Read Nor Run : Ritson, Joseph, 1752-1803 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive", Internet Archive, 2017 <https://archive.org/details/gammergurtonsgar00ritsiala> [accessed 4 April 2017]Opie, Iona Archibald, and Peter Opie, The Oxford Dictionary Of Nursery Rhymes, 1st edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997Opie, Iona, Joan Hassall, and Peter Opie, The Oxford Nursey Rhyme Book, 1st edn (Oxford: Clarendon Pr., 1977)Shrewsbury, John Findlay Drew, A History Of Bubonic Plague In The British Isles, 1st edn, 1970"Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book", The British Library, 2017 <https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/tommy-thumbs-pretty-song-book> [accessed 11 April 2017]