nursery rhymes? or death rhymes?

Ring around the Rosie - This is a photo of the "ring around the rosie" (red marks) people were infected by during the plague. THIS it what your teaching your children at such a young age.
@Gmdem13 (156)
United States
May 30, 2008 9:11am CST
This has been bothering me for a while now, and i wanna see what other peoples view on it are. We all know the nursery rhyme "ring around the rosie" right? okay, but do we all know what its about? for those that dont.... The rhyme refers to the Black Death. "Ring around the rosie" refers to a red mark, supposedly the first sign of the plague. "A pocket full of posies" refers to sachets of herbs carried to ward off infection. "Ashes, Ashes" is refering to either the cremation of plague victims, or the words spoken in the funeral mass. "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust". "We all fall down" we can probably all guess what this refers to. Not many people survived the plague, this refers to the men, women and children lost in the plague. Now, i dont know, how all of you feel, but seriously?? when i was little and learning nursery rhymes i thaught they were happy and cute songs. why do you suppose schools and everyone around the world, teaching children to sing about death and the plague?? please-- i need some other veiws, im not alone on this right?
1 person likes this
4 responses
towfay1
@towfay1 (43)
•
30 May 08
Most nursery rhymes and childrens stories dealt in the negative, I suppose it was a way of teaching life without scarring the children too badly, or maybe they thought it would be easier to keep children away from victims with easy to use verse. I prefer to think they wanted to teach without scarring to badly.
Gmdem13
@Gmdem13 (156)
• United States
31 May 08
but its not really teaching when they dont tell you what they are actually about. nobody ever told me my favorite nursery rhyme was about people dieing. i learned it on my own, and it kind of shocked me in a disturbng kind of way.
pree_6
@pree_6 (434)
• India
30 May 08
hey GMDEM.. i honestly never knew this..thinking of nursery rhymes this is the first song that would strike my mind...probably teachers in schools would have not realized what the song was all about..i think its been an hereditary to sing ring around the roise without actually knowing what it is and continuing the song till date..thanks for the info..i had learnt a meaning of a nursery rhyme after so many years...i felt it was a song indicating happiness in my childhood..i had learnt something new today..thanks!..cheers..nice discussion!..
Gmdem13
@Gmdem13 (156)
• United States
30 May 08
Yes, i always thaught it was a happy song also, nutil i did a paper on it, i found out this and i was very surprised. i never would have thaught!
sarahruthbeth22
@sarahruthbeth22 (43143)
• United States
2 Jun 08
I thought Ashes, Ashes was refering to the ashy skin. And I thought the pocket full of posies were the flowers people carried around to have something good to smell when you were in public. I just learned about the real meaning of the song on the History Channel.I guess it was sung to help remember what happened during the plague but somehow we forgot the meaning and remembered the song.
jkatmaou
@jkatmaou (195)
• Philippines
9 Jun 09
You are speaking of the "plague interpretation" of this nursery rhyme. The poem was associated with the Great Plague characterized by a rosy rash, and believing that posies will help purify the air around them, they carried herbs with them. However, most scholars would say that since this interpretation came later, it has no tradition and that the poem wasn't really meant to be interpreted this way. But come to think of it, haven't you noticed that this poem is usually heard in horror movies? In fact, a lot of nursery rhymes and lullabies provide a horror movie with a scarier ambience.