Ring Around The Rosies Isn’t About The Death Of 75 Million People
For the longest time I heard a story. I heard the story repeatedly, sometimes even from reputable sources (The History Channel). The story was fantastic, it revolved around a children’s song most have heard at some point in their life — Ring Around The Rosies (English version: Ring A Ring O’ Rosies.
The story told how this children’s song was a cryptic reference to the Black Death. This was an outbreak of Bubonic Plague in 1347 to 1351 which killed approximately 75 million people in Europe. This was roughly 1/3 the population of the continent. There was also a resurgence of the disease in England in the 1600s.
Just to give you an idea of the devastation, imagine this event in today’s world. Currently, the United States has a population of 329 Million people. If an event like this occurred today, that would mean almost 110 Million people dying in a matter of a few years. An event of that type would be unimaginable.
So connecting this innocent children’s song to this cataclysmic event is kind of startling to say the least. When I heard this connection, it stuck in my brain and I never forgot it. Everything as it was explained to me made total sense. It was utterly logical.
Ring around the rosy
Pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down
