"The Oxford dictionary of nursery rhymes" edited by the Opies
"Ring-a-ring o' roses.
A pocket full of posies.
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down.
The words of this little ring-song seem to be becoming standardized though
this was not so fifty years ago when Lady Gomme was collecting (ante 1898).Of
the twelve versions she gathered only one was similar to the above. Although
"Ring-a-ring o' roses" is now one of the mosr popular nursery games - the song
which instantly rises from the lips of small children whenever they join hands
in a circle - the words were not known to Halliwell, and have not been found
in children's literature before 1881. Newell, however, says that
Ring a ring a rosie.
A bottle full of posie,
All the girls in our town,
Ring for little Josie.
wascurrent to the familiar tune in New Bedford, Massachussetts, about 1790.
The 'A-tishoo' is notably absent here, as it is also in other versionshe
gives, in which the players squat or stoop rather than fall down:
Round the ring of roses,
Pots full of posies,
The one who stoops last
Shall tell whom she loves best.
The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern english versions has given
would-be origin finders the opportunity to say that the rhyme dates back to
the days of the Great Plague................it would be more delightful to
recall the old belieft that gifted children had the power to laugh roses (Grimm's
Deutsche Mythologie). The foreign and nineteenth century versionsseem to
show that the fall was originally a curtsey ot other gracious bending movement of
a dramatic singing-game, and the present writers have on several occasions
gathered from oral tradition a sequel rhyme for the players to rise on their
feet again,
The cows are in the meadow
Lying fast asleep,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We'll all get up again.
Lines similar to these last are known to the Irish Celts."
Copyright of this book is 1951.
Patricia in Wales
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