Ring-a ring-a roses

[Panchi]

Anyone want to join me in this?

 

I miss not playing it much anymore.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

ring a round the rosie

[Niniel]

I don´t know what that is. 

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

it's a children's song and game, little kids hold hands and dance around in a circle singing

 

ring around the Rosie

pocket full of posies

ashes, ashes, we all fall down

 

there's a story that it's about smallpox but I haven't snopsed that.

 

anyway, when you get to the all fall down, all the kids fall down at once.

 

then they pop back up and do it again.

[Niniel]

Aha. I could fall down but I doubt that I will get back up again. :D

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

I haven't comfortably played this since I was six, but when you babysit the little darlings will make you play it uncomfortably for hours.

[Niniel]

lol

[Aidanna]

Historically it actually comes from the black plague. All the death and dead people, kids would actually dance around the bodies, with posies or other herbs or flowers in their pockets. They thought it would protect them from the evil that was killing people. Black plague was also used as an early form of biological warfare, and during fighting people would catapult bodies over castle or village walls to infect the people they were battling. 

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

hmmm that differed just enough from the stories I'd heard to snopes it.

 

I googled and found explanations that included both bubos and smallpox lesions but snopes says we're all wrong, lol, as they always do, and it was just a silly song to dance around to

 

http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.asp

 

makes sense

[Panchi]

And I thought it was only a game. Some of my classmates and I were playing it with some kindergarteners some days ago.

 

I thought it was Hai sha oi sha instead of ashes ashes

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

everyone says it a bit differently. some say hachoo hachoo to sound like sneezes.

[Aidanna]

I learned the black plague stuff during my history minor for by undergrad degree - that's the only reason I know, or think I do at least. I don't know that people will ever truly know. But some of the lyrics are presumptive of symptoms of the black plague. I can't find a link to a lecture by my profs or anything, but these are OK descriptions of it. Historians really do know "when the song started appearing in records, and they know when the black plague appeared and where, so most historians will go off of that, along with the lyrics.

 

http://healthdecide.orcahealth.com/2012/08/21/ring-around-a-rosie/#.UrNdBWRDsZs

http://www.history.com/topics/black-death

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

join us tomorrow when we discuss the hidden meaning of the lady with the alligator purse

[Aidanna]

Who the heck is the lady with the alligator purse?

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

tiny Tim?

 

miss Lucy?

 

surely you sang this as a youngun?

 

 

Miss Lucy had a baby,

She named him Tiny Tim.

She put him in the bath tub,

To see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water,

He ate up all the soap.

He tried to eat the bath tub,

But it wouldn't go down his throat.

 

Miss Lucy called the Doctor,

Miss Lucy called the Nurse,

Miss Lucy called the Lady,

With the Alligator Purse

 

Mumps said the Doctor,

Measles said the Nurse,

Nothing said the Lady,

With the Alligator Purse.

 

Miss Lucy punched the Doctor,

Miss Lucy knocked the Nurse,

Miss Lucy payed the Lady,

With the Alligator Purse.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

I'll let you google the possible hidden meaning. I don't think we can discuss it on the forum lol.

[Aidanna]

lol - I never sang that, or heard of it...

 

Now my curiosity will kill me unless I look at this hidden meaning....

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

I actually kinda buy it about this song cause I don't know anything else the lady with the alligator purse could signify.

 

when I was a kid she said operation, not nothing.

[Leyrann]

tiny Tim?

 

miss Lucy?

 

surely you sang this as a youngun?

 

 

Miss Lucy had a baby,

She named him Tiny Tim.

She put him in the bath tub,

To see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water,

He ate up all the soap.

He tried to eat the bath tub,

But it wouldn't go down his throat.

 

Miss Lucy called the Doctor,

Miss Lucy called the Nurse,

Miss Lucy called the Lady,

With the Alligator Purse

 

Mumps said the Doctor,

Measles said the Nurse,

Nothing said the Lady,

With the Alligator Purse.

 

Miss Lucy punched the Doctor,

Miss Lucy knocked the Nurse,

Miss Lucy payed the Lady,

With the Alligator Purse.

 

Lol.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

:)

[Elaevia]

we used to alternate between this and 'oranges and lemons'

 

everyone says it a bit differently. some say hachoo hachoo to sound like sneezes.

it was 'atishoo' down our way! :)

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

I only know the oranges and lemons from 1984 and a few scary stories.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

for my American friends :)

 

Gay go up and gay go down,

To ring the bells of London town.

 

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St. Clements.

 

Bull's eyes and targets,

Say the bells of St. Margret's.

 

Brickbats and tiles,

Say the bells of St. Giles'.

 

Halfpence and farthings,

Say the bells of St. Martin's.

 

Pancakes and fritters,

Say the bells of St. Peter's.

 

Two sticks and an apple,

Say the bells of Whitechapel.

 

Pokers and tongs,

Say the bells of St. John's.

 

Kettles and pans,

Say the bells of St. Ann's.

 

Old Father Baldpate,

Say the slow bells of Aldgate.

 

You owe me ten shillings,

Say the bells of St. Helen's.

 

When will you pay me?

Say the bells of Old Bailey.

 

When I grow rich,

Say the bells of Shoreditch.

 

Pray when will that be?

Say the bells of Stepney.

 

I do not know,

Says the great bell of Bow.

 

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

 

Chop chop chop chop

The last man's dead!

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

oooh and on the way there google led me here - haunted Yorkshire with bwahahahhahaha hidden meanings of popular nursery rhymes

 

http://www.haunted-yorkshire.co.uk/grimnurseryrhymes.htm