 |
The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Misc ring around the rosie
|
|
|
The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Misc ring around the rosie
|
|
From: jack@cee.hw.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Subject: Re: Ring around the Rosie
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 20:11:07 GMT
tel@adimail.uucp (Terry Monks) wrote:
> I think we covered this about three months ago, but could some kind
> person please point me to a reference that debunks the origin of this
> rhyme being related to the Plague.
I keep this handy for when this comes up. Maybe somebody can make it ftp'able somewhere.
-=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=-
25 June 92
Since there has been discussion once again of the question of the
meaning and origin of the rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie", I'll post my
two cents worth. I am a folklorist, an archivist of folklore,
and an erstwhile folklore columnist, having written for a year or two for a
local newspaper here in St John's, the Sunday Express. My column was
printed each Sunday in that paper under the title "Said and Done" (I
wrote mainly about custom and language). Each week I would add a header
with a few citations, and send it to the Bitnet-based discussion list,
FOLKLORE (@tamvm1). I stopped writing the column just before the paper
folded last year.
I wrote the "Ring Around the Rosie" column in January 1991. Later in 1991 discussion came up on the net when someone ("Elizabeth") asked about various kinds of lore which she felt were quite horrible in their meaning. She thought the plague interpretation of "Ring" was such a horrible bit of lore. Along with the column (as sent to FOLKLORE) I include here my response to someone else ("Chet") who was not convinced by my (or rather Marion Bowman's) theory that the rhyme is not of much antiquity or horribleness.
This is a long posting, and I apologise for its length and for its repetition. However, it seems that the topic is one of interest, so perhaps someone will find it useful.
I'd appreciate any comments, new sources for early citations, arguments, or whatever.
-Philip Hiscock philiph@kean.ucs.mun.ca
From: KEAN::PHILIPH "Philip Hiscock, MUN Folklore & Language Archive" 27-JAN-1991 13:01:07.90
To: MX%"folklore@tamvm1.bitnet" CC: PHILIPH
Subj: PH's Said&Done, 27 Jan 91: Ring Around the Rosie
Sun 27 Jan 91
Here is my column "Said and Done" published in the Sunday Express of St John's, Newfoundland, today 27 Jan 91.
Readers of FOLKLORE will appreciate knowing what is probably the most important recent article on "Ring Around the Rosie." It is by Marion Bowman, and is called "Ring-a-ring-a-roses: a Play on Plague or a Plague on Play?" in _Talking_Folklore_ number 7 (August 1989), pp. 1-14. She gives several references to published versions of the rhyme and the best discussion of the plague interpretation; what I say here essentially follows from Bowman. (The play-party interpretation is mine.)
The best annotation of the rhyme is given by Paul Brewster in his "Children's Games and Rhymes" which is published in vol one of the Frank C Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore (ed by N.I.White), pp 150-151. The earliest reference is to Kate Greenaway's collection _Mother_Goose_or_the_Old_ _Nursery_Rhymes_ published in London in 1881. (A line drawing based on her picture is on the cover of the _TF_ issue which includes Marion Bowman's article.) After 110 years, this book is still in print (Warne's have had the rights since the beginning of this century).
The Greenaway version is
Ring-a-ring-a-roses,
A pocket full of posies;
Hush! hush! hush! hush!
We're all tumbled down.
Is there a serious treatment of Greenaway's rhymes somewhere? Does anyone know to what extent she left those "old nursery rhymes" alone, and to what extent she, as a poet herself, doctored them for her own purposes? There is no doubt that this rhyme had a special meaning in her life, so she may have changed it somewhat from the oral version. I do not think she invented the poem.
William Wells Newell, in his _Games_of_American_ _Children_ (1883), claimed that a version was circulating in 1790 in Massachusetts; this is at worst untrustworthy for lack of source/evidence, but at best suggestive of an American source of the rhyme. (Newell is available in the Dover reprint of 1963, probably several times since then.)
The Opies have a very nice collection of variants in their Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. I am not sure it's my favourite, but they include a parody, from The Observer, 9 Jan 1949:
Ring-a-ring-o'-geranium,
A pocket full of uranium,
Hiro, shima,
All fall down!
Are there Baghdad parodies now?
In the published version of the following column the title was
replaced with "Myth Information or Misinformation?" a reference to the recent book _Myth_Information_ which I mention.
-Philip
Said and Done Philip Hiscock
Date: 27 Jan 91 Folklore of Folklore
Plenty folklore is indeed "old folklore" but that is not to say that all folklore is old. One of the areas in which new folklore is constantly being formed is that of the folklore of folklore -- the beliefs and sayings which are passed around about what we all know is folklore. A few weeks ago I wrote about the newest meaning of the phrase "blue moon," which gives a name to the (previously unnamed) second full moon in a calendar month. It's been mooted about that it is a bit of "old folklore," but those of us who've looked closely can't find anything that carries its history back more than a few decades, if that far.
But lots of folklore is very old, not just a few decades or a century or two. The roots, although not the forms, of our present Christmas and Hallowe'en celebrations seem to go back over two thousand years. That's a long time for old folklore to survive but it is none the less a fact, at least in a manner of speaking. Actually, it is confusing to speak of "survival" when you are talking about the history of customs. It is better to talk about a long series of "revivals" because almost every generation understands, acts out, and uses old customs in ways different from their parents.
The antiquity of our traditional lore and customs is well-known. It is part of the folklore of our folklore that Christmas derives from "old pagan festivals." When it is suggested that some of our commonest nursery rhymes have older meanings that have been lost for centuries, the suggestion resonates with the knowledge of the antiquity and it seems quite believeable.
When I was a teenager in the sixties I first heard the attribution of great antiquity to "Ring Around the Rosie." It is a widely known verse, sung and acted out by small children. The words I used to sing were:
Ring around the rosie,
Pocket full of posie;
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down.
For me, it was a series of sounds, images, and action without much connecting meaning. As a teenager I heard that this piece of nonsense was actually a cryptic reference to, or a folk memory of the great plagues of the Middle Ages. This is the kind of "fact" which we all hear from time to time; those of us with good enough memories pull them out to dazzle others at parties or over coffee. A "fact" like this goes well with stories of curious African tribes and world record numbers of babies.
During the past twenty years I've heard it again and again. But like all folklore, the different versions do not always jibe with each other. The basic interpretation is that the first line refers to the rosie-red, round rashes which are supposed to be the first sign of plague. The second line refers to an alleged, superstitious method of warding off the disease by carrying or stuffing your pockets full of posies. The third line is difficult to interpret in my version ("Ashes, ashes"), but in many others it is clearly the sound of sneezing ("At-soo, at-soo" or even "A tissue! A tissue!"). The interpretive skills of the folk etymologizers aren't put to hard work to come up with the statement that, like the rosey rings, sneezing is a sign of plague. The last line is the clincher, for what else can we do once we've got the plague, but "All fall down," dead? Sometimes the plague referred to is the great London plague of 1665. More often the plague of 1347-50 is referred to; it is the one known as the Black Death. A few days ago I bought a book called Myth Information which purports to tell the truth about 590 pieces of common misinformation. The author claims that this rhyme is indeed a memory of that fourteenth century plague.
Last week a student researcher told me his version, or rather the version that he was investigating. According to it, the virus of the plague had two hosts in its life cycle -- man and the common rose. Early folk scientists noticed that the sign of the infestation in the rose was a coloured ring around the stem of the rose (first line). Posies, steeped into a herbal tea, were a folk medicine for the infestation (second line). The rest of the interpretation is more or less as above. It is a distinctly eighties or nineties version of the belief, including as it does a combination of scientific knowledge (alternation of hosts) and alternative medicine (herbalism).
It all sounds plausible -- except no one asked the folklorists about it. The fact is that unlike many other nursery rhymes, ones which we know are very old, there was no known version of "Ring-a-ring-a-rosie" (the usual name for it) before the late nineteenth century! It is a big leap of faith to suggest that it was circulating for five hundred years before anyone got around to writing it down. But, you might ask, why would anyone write it down anyway? The answer is that English antiquarians and folklorists have been bringing together, publishing and discussing traditional rhymes, songs, and stories for over three hundred years. It does seem odd that they might have missed this one.
I will remain skeptical of plague interpretations for a while yet. The more likely explanation is to be found in the religious ban on dancing among many Protestants in the nineteenth century, in Britain as well as here in North America. Adolescents found a way around the dancing ban with what was called in the United States the "play-party." Play-parties consisted of ring games which differed from square dances only in their name and their lack of musical accompaniment. They were hugely popular, and younger children got into the act, too. Some modern nursery games, particularly those which involve rings of children, derive from these play-party games. "Little Sally Saucer" (or "Sally Waters") is one of them, and "Ring Around the Rosie" seems to be another. The rings referred to in the rhymes are literally the rings formed by the playing children. "Ashes, ashes" probably comes from something like "Husha, husha" (another common variant) which refers to stopping the ring and falling silent. And the falling down refers to the jumble of bodies in that ring when they let go of each other and throw themselves into the circle. We mustn't look too closely for meaning -- we all know that children are not predisposed against making up and repeating nonsense.
Folklore rarely appears from nowhere, though. It usually has elements borrowed from other forms. Perhaps there was an earlier, partially revived rhyme which had some of the same elements. But the rhyme as we know it certainly does not date from the plague years.
Philip Hiscock is Archivist at the Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive.
From: KEAN::PHILIPH "Philip Hiscock, MUN Folklore & Language Archive" 14-NOV-1991 20:39:36.43
To: MX%"folklore@tamvm1.bitnet" CC: PHILIPH
Subj: Ringing Round that Rosie, Again
Thurs 14 Nov 1991
My apologies to all on the list if this reply got out of here earlier this week. I've actually been trying to get it posted since Monday. I don't think it made it, but if it did, and if this is the umpteenth time you've read this, please be patient. Our poor tired machines will be well again one day. Each time I try to post it, by the way, I reread it and change it a little. If you've gotten it a half dozen times, you might have material for a study in e-MS development.
-Philip
Mon 11/11/91
Chet,
Thanks for your comments about my theory (borrowed, of course, from Marion Bowman) that "Ring Around the Rosie" does not derive from any memory of the plague, and that it is a development of the North American play party game. I still stand by that interpretation. In fact, after reviewing my notes on the rhyme, I think I'll go even further than I did in the newspaper column I posted last week. I won't say this for certain; instead I'll preface it with "I wouldn't be surprised is it were found to be true that...."
I wouldn't be surprised if it were found that "Ring Around the Rosie" was invented in the New England States in the late 18th century. This would bring it back to well over a hundred years after the plague year that Defoe wrote about, and four hundred years after the Great Plague. (This is not to associate me with that popular school that has Mrs Vergoose of Boston the author of Mother Goose; "Ring Around the Rosie" was not in any "Mother Goose" collections until Greenaway put it there. See for example the William Whitmore 1889 reprint of the 1785 Worchester, Mass. reprint of an alleged 1760 London Mother Goose; Whitmore's reprint was itself reprinted in 1969 by the Singing Tree Press, Detroit.)
As I said in the column, the earliest credible claim we have to the existence of this rhyme is Newell's 1883 memory (apparently second hand!) that a rhyme of this sort was circulating in the 1790s in the New Bedford, Mass., area:
Ring a ring a rosie,
A bottle full of posie,
All the girls in our town,
Ring for little Josie.
As the Opies say, "The 'A-tishoo' is notably absent here." The word "ashes" is certainly a later development; whether from "a-tishoo" (now read as "a tissue" by some), or - as I suggest - "hush-a, hush-a," is still not known.
Newell gives another Massachusetts version:
Round the ring of roses,
Pots full of posies,
The one who stoops the last
Shall tell whom she loves the best.
Here we see the attempt by all to "stoop" (in other variants, "squat", "fall", "tumble") as quickly as possible. The forfeit built into the competition is to tell who you love. Compare this to the common variants of Sally Waters (or, as I learned it, "Little Sally Saucer. Sitting in the water, Rise up Sally and wash away your tears. Turn to the east side, Turn to the west side, turn to the very one that you love best.") Many of the play party traditions, especially those that were preserved as children's rhymes, included this particular forfeit of exposing your secret admiration. By the way, Benjamin Botkin's _The American Play-Party Song_ (Ungar, 1937, rpt 1963) is still - I think - the main work on that tradition.
The earliest version of the rhyme to make it into print was Kate Greenaway's 1881 version. Although Greenaway probably put it into print because of her knowledge of John Ruskin's obsession with a little girl he called his "Posie Rosie" and Greenaway's own obsession at that time of her life with Ruskin (that's another story....), I think she printed the poem essentially as she was hearing it being sung by little children around her in England. But her version became the standard from which most later oral versions derive. She has as the third line "Hush! hush! hush! hush!"
Only very much later do we start to see the "ashes" variant, clearly a product of the evolution of the poem in the mouths of babes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Intermediate forms are "Husha husha," and "Asha, asha," as well as others.
In interpreting folklore, and especially in establishing its history, we must always be aware of the difference between symbol and origin. This is something which is important, for instance, in understanding the roots of the Nov 5th bonfire tradition here in Newfoundland, still a very active local custom. The commemoration of the bonfire is said to be the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, but in fact that was just another way of celebrating the custom of fall bonfires (on or within a week of Nov 5th), a custom which stretched back many centuries before Guy Fawkes was born, let alone hung.
Here we have the same problem. For many people "Ring Around the Rosie" has become imbued with symbolic ("commemorative") power, referring back to the plagues. But the symbolism hangs entirely on evidence that doesn't seem to go back very far into the past. The "ashes" part seems not to be even a hundred years old. Part of the contemporary folklore of the rhyme certainly is that this historical connection existed. And that folklore of the rhyme is very widespread. But we all know that folklore is not always true, even the folklore of folklore. In fact the earliest reference that I know of to this interpretation of the rhyme is James Leasor's _The Plague and The Fire_ (McGraw-Hill, 1961). I have no idea whether Leasor invented the idea, but it was during the 1960s that popular culture spread the interpretation all over North America. Is Leasor still alive? Can we ask him where he got the idea?
Chet, I hope this convinces you, but if it doesn't, I want to hear your response. This is clearly a matter of some contention, and my theory has me out on a limb (though a sturdy one!), so I'd be very interested to hear what other folklorists have to say about it.
I don't think that my position makes Elizabeth's problem any less. Elizabeth started the discussion this time around by asking for examples of horrible folklore. Well, the srrounding folklore (the plague interpretation) of this particular bit of folklore (the rhyme) is nonetheless horrible - I just say that the core folklore item (the rhyme) ain't very horrible at all. At least not in its historical origin.
-Philip
Philip Hiscock
philiph@kean.ucs.mun.ca
-=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=--=*)]![(*=-
--
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4195 HOME: 031 556 5272 FAX: 031 451 3431
INTERNET: jack@cee.hw.ac.uk BITNET: via UKACRL BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet
|
Any proceeds (net proceeds from merchandise sales) from TAFKAC solely
benefit The Chuck Reed Fund.
Copyright Information http://tafkac.org/ |