The Black Plague - Ring a Ring O’Roses
Written by on August 3, 2007 – 1:39 pm -A popular children’s rhyme “Ring a Ring O’Roses” or often distorted to “ring around the rosy” depicts the scene during the time of the Bubonic Plague, which was thought to be the Asian origin of the Great Plague that caused devastation in London.
Ring a ring o’roses
Refers to the symptom of rosy red colored rashes, shaped in rings that were surfaced on the skin.
A pocketful of posies
With the thought that the plague was contracted through reeking air, pockets and pouches were carried with pleasant smelling herbs.
Ashes, ashes
Represented the cremated ashes of the dead. The English version of this rhyme replaces this with “A-tishoo, A-tishoo” which imitated the symptom of violent sneezing.
We all fall down
Succumbing, finally to death.
Although in modern times, many do not associate this infant’s rhyme to English history, the haunting phrases wisping through the sing-song voices of children serve as a morbid reminder of the mass-death event that reaped through England centuries ago.
Posted in Humanities & History |
