Creepy nursery rhymes

[Darsh]

Have any of you ever heard the nursery rhyme "Ring around the Rosy"? well if you have I bet you didn't know what it really means. Today in English class our teacher was discussing Shakespeare and about how around that time there were many deaths due to the Bubonic(sp?) Plague, and it just happens that this nursery rhyme is about the Plague.

Here is the rhyme.

Ring around the Rosy
Pockets full of Posies
Ashes Ashes
We all fall down

And here is what those lines mean

Ring around the Rosy-the Plague caused sores on the skin, these sores were surrounded by a red ring.

Pockets full of Posies-Posies were thought to reduce the chance of getting the Plague so people put them in their pockets (The posies did not help prevent the Plague)

Ashes Ashes-People who died from the Plague (Almost everyone you caught it) were burned to reduce the spreading of it

We all fall down-You died


And how this has gotten to be a popular nursery rhyme I will never know.

 

[Bob]

I won't be able to sleep tonight....

 

[theorgg]

I already knew about that since I was about seven or eight.

My grandmother taught me the fact.
I remember one of my teachers gettin' very angry when I mentioned the fact in class... It disturbed her...

I have wondered quite a bit myself how the saying got popular.

 

[Bob]

Think about Humpty Dumpty for a while...
A king who fell off a wall...

I think there was one about a beheaded queen too.

 

[sageridder]

The way I read it,the ring of sores was around the mouth,hence ring around the rosies(rosies being the lips). The posies were stuffed into their pockets to reduce stink from the dead bodies.And ashes ashes refers to burning the bodies.We all fall down,well most did and into a grave. How about rock a bye baby,straight foreward they stick a kid in a tree and it falls to the earth.Ohh by the way bob I heard humpty was pushed.

 

[Darsh]

Originally posted by sageridder
Ohh by the way bob I heard humpty was pushed.

It's a conspiracy!
Mother Goose is a psycho killer!

 

[sageridder]

Shaft told me so,You're Damn right.

 

[Spiderman]

This is false. Check here to see why: http://www.snopes.com/spoons/fracture/rosie.htm

Print it out and show it to your teacher and see what she/he says.

theorgg: It appears you were fed misinformation...

 

[terzarima]

Where does it ever say that humpty dumpty is ever an egg? No where why do we all asume that he is an egg?

 

[Ransac]

In fifth grade, my teacher gave each of us a nursery ryhme to study, hand in a report, and present it to the class. I got Ring around the Rosey. My teacher thought my report was excellent, but, due to the fact the she didn't about what it meant until I told her, she thought it was inappropriate and asked if I could not present it to the class.

My thoughts at that point: Bonus. More sleep time.



Ransac, cpa trash man