I'm not going to make a fool of myself by getting this completely wrong so I'll just outline what I believe to be true andd hope someone who *REALLY* knows can put me right... It's alleged to go back to the days of the plague. 'Ring of roses', I believe, refers to skin rashes victims developed while 'pocket full of posies' refers to the bouquet of herbs(?) or suchlike that people carried for their (hopefully) medicinal properties - to ward off the evil plague. Of course, 'atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down' refers to the ultimate death of the victims. Hope that's right... or something like it!

Well yes it has something to do with the Black Death and flowers, rocksoft so I imagine you're right.

Yes, specifically it refers to Pomanders, which were oranges, or lemons, stuck with spices and flowers and carried and sniffed to ward off the evil air believed at the time to cause the plague. Several recipes for "effective" pomanders have survived, including those involving vinegar, cloves, sulphur and cats urine. As you can tell medical science hasnt advanced much.

The following is a link to the Ring a Ring Of Roses FAQ by a chap called Ian Monro: http://www.ualberta.ca/~imunro/ring.html He says 'First, the rhyme's not old enough. Second, the early versions are clearly not about the plague. The earliest printed source for the rhyme dates from 1881. A folklore book published in 1883 claims that versions of the rhyme were circulating in Massachusetts in 1790, but no printed evidence is available. This earlier date is 125 years after the last major plague of the English-speaking world, and roughly 450 years after the Black Death, the 14th century plague most commonly associated with the poem. Furthermore, most early versions of the rhyme would be extremely difficult to interpret as references to the plague. Folklorists have come up with far more plausible explanations for the origins of the rhyme'. I would advise you check out his page for a far more detailled answer from Mr Monro himself, rather than me take the credit for his hard work.

Although I haven't visited the link mentioned, could I just say that the claim that the rhyme isn't old enough strikes me as a curious one... a rhyme written tomorrow about the plague wouldn't be old enough either but it would still be about the plague. I'll stick by my previous answer for now - incitatus' seems to have the version I vaguely remembered. That said, I'll eventually get around to visiting the FAQ to see what it has to say.

RockSoft, I understand your thinking, but Ian's FAQ does present quite a convincing argument. When he examines the earliest versions of the songs, the lines which are interpretted as being about the plague are not in there. I guess it's possible the plague implication could have been added later. Ian thinks that it is simply the dancing instructions to an old folk tune. I'd advise you to chekc it out.