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16 Dreadful Details about the Black Plague

Shaina Lucas September 18, 2018 18 min

The Decameron - Black Death — A 14th-century etching by L. Sabatelli depicting the Black Death in Florence as described in Boccaccio’s Decameron. Wikimedia Commons.

Ring Around The Rosie Drawing. Deviantart.

13. A Childhood Rhyme Was Inspired By The Plague

We all played Ring Around the Rosie as kids. Singing, laughing, dancing, having a good time. But did you know the rhyme was inspired by the Black Death? Ring Around the Rosie also knows as Ring a Ring o’ Roses, first appeared in print in 1881. Reports say that a version of it with the same tune was sung in the 1790s with and similar rhymes were known all across Europe. The actual meaning of the song has been argued for centuries, but most folklore believes it is about the Black Death.

“Pocket full of posies” relates to the flowers used to either help create the “good smells” like inside doctor’s masks or the strewing of flowers on dead bodies. “We all fall down” relates to the fact everyone was dying, and we’d all die eventually. “Ashes, Ashes” is debated, but most believe it was the burning of bodies, namely the Jews that were punished after forced confessions. The title “ring around the Rosie?” It’s said it refers to the buboes on an infected person’s body. So before you happily sing that old rhyme, remember what it was based on.

Written by

Shaina Lucas

Shaina Lucas is an avid historical buff. She graduated in 2013 from York College of PA with her BA in Professional Writing, Creative Writing, and World History. She then graduated from SNHU in 2015 with her MA, and in 2018 graduated with her MFA in Creative Writing from National University. She is a local actress in York, PA and specializes in Shakespeare, Medieval history, comic history, and the French Revolution. She is also an avid collector of swords and knives from various time periods.