{"id":6623,"date":"2014-07-24T17:01:12","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T23:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6623"},"modified":"2014-07-24T17:01:12","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T23:01:12","slug":"no-ring-around-the-rosie-is-not-about-the-black-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6623","title":{"rendered":"No, &#8220;Ring around the Rosie&#8221; is not about the Black Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.loc.gov\/folklife\/2014\/07\/ring-around-the-rosie-metafolklore-rhyme-and-reason\/\">For one thing, there are multiple versions recorded by folklorists and they do not &#8220;all fall down.&#8221;<\/a> From the Library of Congress blog:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The claim that the rhyme is related to pestilence is even younger; the folklorists who diligently recorded the rhyme itself in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries never mention the plague interpretation, although they surely would have had they known it. The first evidence I\u2019ve seen that people were connecting the rhyme with death and disaster is from 1949, when the newspaper <em>The Observer<\/em> ran a parody of the rhyme beginning \u201cring-a-ring-o\u2019-geranium, a pocketful of uranium\u201d and referring to the bombing of Hiroshima.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Why mention this? It is just another example of the perils of looking for &#8220;ancient survivals&#8221; in folklore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For one thing, there are multiple versions recorded by folklorists and they do not &#8220;all fall down.&#8221; From the Library of Congress blog: The claim that the rhyme is related to pestilence is even younger; the folklorists who diligently recorded the rhyme itself in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries never mention the plague interpretation, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-6623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-folklore"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1IP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3999,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3999","url_meta":{"origin":6623,"position":0},"title":"Ring-Dancing Monkeys and Black Death Rubbish","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"At Got Medieval, Carl Pyrdrum re-debunks the persistent, authentic-sounding story that the nursery rhyme \"Ring around the Rosies\" has anything whatsoever to do with the Black Death of the 1340s. It does not. As any good English plague survivor********** could tell you, the plague was caused by sin and best\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Druids\"","block_context":{"text":"Druids","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=druids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":570,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=570","url_meta":{"origin":6623,"position":1},"title":"\"The Dark Side\"Andrew Sullivan links\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The Dark Side\"Andrew Sullivan links to this video clip from Trading Spouses: the fundamentalist Christian mom's meltdown. Moral: beware of people who pronounce Tarot to rhyme with \"carrot.\" According to the network's episode synopses (here and here), she did take the tainted, demonic money in the end.Tag: Fundamentalism","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":380,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=380","url_meta":{"origin":6623,"position":2},"title":"Religion being made An interesting\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 9, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Religion being made An interesting thread on Erynn Laurie's blog shows a group of Celtic Reconstructionist Pagans attempting to move beyond the idea of \"personal gnosis\" (\"It's right for me.\") In comparison to Greek religion, for example, we have almost nothing on Pagan Celtic religion that was actually written down\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13304,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13304","url_meta":{"origin":6623,"position":3},"title":"Green Man Image Starts &#8216;Pagan King&#8217; Chatter","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 6, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Enormous preparations, both pragmatic and ceremonial, are under way for the crowning of King Charles III and Queen Camilla next month in London. When the official invitation was prepared, people's attention was drawn to the foliate head, the \"Green Man\" at the bottom. Was it a sign to those who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/greenman.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/greenman.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/greenman.webp?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10687,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10687","url_meta":{"origin":6623,"position":4},"title":"Scottish Academic: Runes are Hate Symbols, also Anti-Celtic","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A free download from the journal Temenos: \"Pagans, Nazis, Gaels, and the Algiz Rune: Addressing Questions of Historical Inaccuracy, Cultural Appropriation, and the Arguable Use of Hate Symbols at the Festivals of Edinburgh\u2019s Beltane Fire Society\" The abstract: Although Beltaners \u2013 members of Edinburgh\u2019s Beltane Fire Society (BFS) \u2013 can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Beltane\"","block_context":{"text":"Beltane","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=beltane"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/runes.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13970,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13970","url_meta":{"origin":6623,"position":5},"title":"The Power and Sorrow of Gododdin","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Two things arrived together in a package from Amazon: a new Bluetooth mouse, currently in use, and leading Welsh poet Gillian Clarke's new version of Y Gododdin, titled The Gododdin: Lament for the Fallen. I first encountered the poem in my early twenties -- was it while shelving books in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Anglo-Saxon England\"","block_context":{"text":"Anglo-Saxon England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anglo-saxon-england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/gododdin-mouse.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/gododdin-mouse.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/gododdin-mouse.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/gododdin-mouse.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6624,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6623\/revisions\/6624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}