Ring Around the Roses Transcript

Micah (Knob Twister): 0:04

Welcome to Tales of Bedlam. I'm your host, knob Twister, who forgets to turn the mics on.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 0:11

Yes, oh well, who was I, since we're doing this again? Shoot, I'm your friendly neighborhood sofa sitter.

Micah (Knob Twister): 0:19

Yes, and we're bringing another nursery rhyme to you, our second episode.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 0:26

It's bedtime Nursery rhymes. That's creepy.

Micah (Knob Twister): 0:29

Dustin. Today we're doing Ring Around the Rosie or Ring Around the Roses.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 0:36

Oh, yeah, yeah, Everybody knows that one. Oh, I think so. Are you going to sing it?

Micah (Knob Twister): 0:42

Okay, well, the common American version, you mean.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 0:45

Well, yeah, like what we would know.

Micah (Knob Twister): 0:47

Ring around the roses, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes. We all fall down. That was lovely.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 0:59

That's the one I know.

Micah (Knob Twister): 1:00

Yeah, well, I guess there's lots of other versions, but yeah, what's it mean? I don't know. What does it mean? It?

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 1:07

don't mean crap, it's just nonsense.

Micah (Knob Twister): 1:10

Well, I know that the normal idea was that it's referring to the plague in England in 1665. Is that correct? Is that the answer you were asking, or fishing for?

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 1:26

Dustin, that's what I was fishing for and that was nice research, sir. 1665, plague in London. Yeah, when was the other one?

Micah (Knob Twister): 1:35

The Black Death.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 1:36

There was two medieval plagues the Black, Death.

Micah (Knob Twister): 1:41

Oh yeah, earlier with that Black Death, but I don't have a date for that 1350. Whoa, that's a long time ago.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 1:50

That's a lot of people died.

Micah (Knob Twister): 1:52

But it looks like the explanation was that the rhyme referred to a rosy rash.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 2:02

That makes sense.

Micah (Knob Twister): 2:03

And the symptoms of the plague. Like the posies were herbs to help combat the symptoms and or hide the smell, whereas they were also talking about sneezing or coughing, because in the British version they actually say achoo, achoo Instead of ashes and ashes.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 2:22

So they say achoo.

Micah (Knob Twister): 2:22

And so, and they all fall Instead of ashes and ashes. So they say achoo, and so and they all fall down. Of course we know what that means, and the ashes were the burning of the bodies.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 2:33

They burned them all.

Micah (Knob Twister): 2:34

They burned the body, the plague victims, to not spread the disease. Is this correct?

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 2:38

Yeah, that's the common theory and that is. That's gruesome.

Micah (Knob Twister): 2:43

No, why would two kids run around? I think it's absolutely correct. Can you really prove me wrong?

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 2:48

Well, of course I can prove you wrong. Then go ahead. When was the first recorded publishing of this nursery rhyme? Oh, did you see that?

Micah (Knob Twister): 2:58

Yes, I did. I have to find it in my notes, but I know that it didn't appear until the mid-20th century 20th centuryth century, a long time after, how about the 19th century? Oh, no, sorry, the explanation was the 20th century.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 3:12

I apologize, you are correct yeah, so it was 18, it was the 1650 plague, so 200 years. Nobody ever wrote, they sang it and all the kids played that for 200 years before someone wrote it down.

Micah (Knob Twister): 3:35

Eh, that's possible, right? Don't you have maybe something else to make it a little less likely?

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 3:43

Less likely.

Micah (Knob Twister): 3:44

Yeah.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 3:44

You found something that was going to make it less likely than that.

Micah (Knob Twister): 3:47

Well, in my research, I found that there were several points, you know, the explanation of the fact that the symptoms described do not quite fit the actual great plague, whereas, yeah, the plague doesn't normally come with a rash described do not quite fit the actual Great Plague.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 4:06

Whereas, yeah, the plague doesn't normally come with a rash. You get big black bumps.

Micah (Knob Twister): 4:12

And then there was a problem with some of the interpretation of words Falling down literally. They think meant a curtsy not to actually fall down dead. Think meant a curtsy not to actually fall down dead and the ashes. In our version, the american version can sometimes be interpreted as a sneeze and the plague didn't probably it was a fever. Was the plague not a cold?

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 4:41

yeah, there is a version of the plague that's airborne and it's nasty but she didn't sneeze from it, though how else do you spread it?

Micah (Knob Twister): 4:50

well, maybe it's all the poppies. I mean all the daisies, the herbs, the posies in the air you just had to we've.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 4:59

This is funny. This is the first time we've ever really like did separate research. I know on the same.

Micah (Knob Twister): 5:03

This is really hard time we've ever really did separate research on the same thing. This is really hard to do and we both researched completely different things. Oh, I have actually a really cool theory in here that you might not have. But first tell me about your amazing discovery on this.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 5:17

I found I was researching posies. I thought a posie was a certain type of flower. Like you, go down to Home Depot yeah, it is right, mm-mm and buy a posie. No, there is no such flower as a posy. Then what's a posy? A posy is a. It's like a pose and see if you can remember where we had this word before A nosegay. So it's a bundle.

Micah (Knob Twister): 5:44

Which is what was a nosegay.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 5:46

Yeah, it was a bundle or a bouquet. So it was a bundle of flowers or herbs it was what a posy is, so it's actually a bundle of flowers. Yeah, so it could have been any flowers, really flowers or herbs, and it was just meant to smell nice. It was used as like perfume hmm, they put them in their chamber pots.

Micah (Knob Twister): 6:06

Well, that would make more sense with the roses or rosy ring around the roses. It could be a bouquet or a nosegay of roses. Hmm, mm-hmm. Very good, dustin.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 6:22

I bet it's going to be concentration camps, isn't it Nope?

Micah (Knob Twister): 6:25

Nope, ugh, nope. I'm going to read some of this, so I don't mess it up. Mess it up so folklorist Philip His hiscock, with a more likely suggestion that the nursery rhyme probably has its origins in the religious ban on dancing among many protestants in the 19th century. No, I did read that. Yeah, oh crap. In britain, as well as here in North America, adolescents found a way around the dancing band with what they called in the United States, the play party.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 7:02

Did you forget this? The very first time I sat down to do research on this, I ran across that and I didn't write it down. But I was thinking holy crap, it was medieval Footloose.

Micah (Knob Twister): 7:14

Ah yes, don't put baby in the corner.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 7:19

That was oh my God, play parties consisted. That wasn't footloose. Oh, that was dirty dancing.

Micah (Knob Twister): 7:29

Sorry, I'm getting my dancing movies mixed up Footloose was Kevin Bacon.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 7:32

Sir, I'm getting my dancing movies mixed up.

Micah (Knob Twister): 7:33

Footloose was Kevin Bacon. Sir, play parties consisted of ring games which differed from square dances, yeah, only in their name and their lack of musical accompaniment.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 7:45

I read the where did you get that? I read the exact same thing that was on Snopes, wasn't it?

Micah (Knob Twister): 7:50

No, I found that on Mental Floss.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 7:54

Oh.

Micah (Knob Twister): 7:54

I read that mental floss magazine, paragraph huh about the square dancing well, maybe it was just you know, copy pasted from snopes what's snopes?

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 8:04

snopes is where you go to find out something's true or not oh you go to snopescom, that's cool yeah well, I thought that was kind of a cool little. Oh man, but it's sad, I forgot to jot it down.

Micah (Knob Twister): 8:16

Actually it's not sad. I like that a lot better than I do the death and dying, so I'm going with that one.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 8:24

Well, the other one that I found was you had another one. Yeah that it was about the concentration camps in World War II.

Micah (Knob Twister): 8:33

Huh, and this is why dates that exactly.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 8:36

Well, that's why it's not true, but this was this was the reasoning was rosy. They'd prick their fingers ouch, and then draw rope circles on their face with the blood to make themselves look healthier. So rosy circle posies was again the that cover the smell of death. And then the ashes were the furnaces. Oh Boo, Right, so I mean it was a good theory.

Micah (Knob Twister): 9:01

So like the Jews and other people that were in the concentration camps, would put blood on their face to make themselves look healthier Like rude. How would that help them? I don't know.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 9:13

But that was the theory I read.

Micah (Knob Twister): 9:15

It sounds more like a bunch of emancipated clowns roaming around Emancipated. No, emaciated, emaciated. They definitely weren't emancipated. They wanted to be emancipated, but yeah.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 9:30

But of course that's debunked because it was written.

Micah (Knob Twister): 9:35

That's bad. We should be laughing when we're talking about the Holocaust.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 9:40

Well, I don't think it was funny, but it was funny what you said about it.

Micah (Knob Twister): 9:45

Gosh. Anyways, we're definitely we're falling down and, of course, World War II wasn't until the 1940s Right. So it couldn't have been about that? No, I don't think so. But you know, hey, take some more drugs and make up some more theories.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 10:00

I think that was the dead foil hat club that came up with that one Probably time traveling Nazis, I guess I don't know.

Micah (Knob Twister): 10:07

You know what?

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 10:08

Did you find any other versions?

Micah (Knob Twister): 10:09

Well, like on Wiki, they had several versions for the different languages. It seemed like all the languages had it slightly tweaked, but the one from the British version it's two verses. The british version, it's two verses. So you have the ring, a ring of rosies, a pocket full of posies, a shoe, a shoe. We all fall down. Cows in the meadows eating buttercups a shoe a, we all jump up, and to that I kind of go with the whole the ban against dancing, Because that sounds like kind of like a dancing game.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 10:55

You know you have to pass it off as a game. I like that theory a lot better than you sing it and you dance around in a circle.

Micah (Knob Twister): 11:00

Yeah.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 11:01

That's the whole point of it, it's nice.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 11:02

It's nice, we should dance. I'm not dancing with you. Oh man, I found all kinds of versions that they were all different, but they all start with the ring around the rosier roses. All right, pots full of posies. Was one Pocket full of posies, a bottle full of posies? Girls in the town, one for Jack and one for jack and one for jim and one for little moses? Yeah, there are there. I found all kinds of versions. I've never heard that one like this one. Uh, ring, ring, a ring, a rosie, a bottle full of posy. All the girls in our town ring for little josie or ring, a ring of roses, a pocket around posies, and one for Jack, and one for Jim and one for little Moses.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 11:49

A Tisha, a Tisha, a Tisha, whatever that means though this is my favorite one, because the end of it doesn't make any sense. Ring, a ring of roses, a pocket full of posies upstairs and downstairs in my lady's chamber, husher, husher, cuckoo.

Micah (Knob Twister): 12:10

Husher, husher cuckoo. I think it's a little cuckoo. That was Alice.

Dustin (Sofa Sitter): 12:16

Gome, published in the Dictionary of British Folklore.

Micah (Knob Twister): 12:19

The first part kind of reminded me of maybe, maybe hushush hush running up and down the stairs with my lady now you're getting a little weird. Well, I don't know. Anyway, cuckoo, that is our nursery rhyme for this month. If you thought that was pretty cool, we'd like you to share it with your friends on YouTube and wherever you get out there and connect with friends and family. Let them know about this amazing podcast now on YouTube. Do it right now. Good night, Bye.