Is A Children’s Song About The Deaths Of Millions?
“Ring Around The Rosie” and the great plague
For the longest time I heard a story. It was often repeated even by reputable sources, such as the History Channel. This fantastic story revolved around a children’s song most have heard at some point in their life — Ring Around The Rosie (English version: Ring A Ring O’ Roses.)
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 untold millions of people in Europe. According to medieval poet and historian Jean Froissart, 1/3 of Europe’s population succumbed to the disease.
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.
The numbers seem staggering, but the horror is catalyzed when you read a human voice from that era. Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, a writer from that time period, produced a written record of what happened in Sienna from 1300 to 1351. He writes:
“And I, Agnolo di Tura, called ‘The Fat’, buried my five children with…
