"Ring a Ring o' Roses" or "Ring Around the Rosie" is a nursery rhyme or folksong and playground singing game. It first appeared in print in 1881; but it is reported that a version was already being sung to the current tune in the 1790s and similar rhymes are known from across Europe. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7925. Urban legend says the song originally described the plague, but folklorists reject this idea.
Read more about Ring A Ring O' Roses: Lyrics, Plague Interpretation
Famous quotes containing the words ring and/or roses:
“These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“Making it, making it,
in their chosen field
the roses fall
victim to a weakness of the heart.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)