Ring Around A Rosy

Children song? yes, indeed.....meaning to it? quite interesting.....
This song's meaning is basiclly a lesson about the black death/plague. It was created to teach children of the middle ages about the sickness spreading across Europe. "Ring around the rosy" was when the flea bit you, there would be a mark, rosy-ish color that would have a ring aroung it. "pocket full of posy" is the line where the people of that time thought there was a cure. One of the plagues in the Black Death was airborn and rare because you had to be aroung someone sneezing or coughing to get it. And it made you die so fast, you didnt have time to spread it to others and people thought the cure was to sniff a posy pedal (a type of flower petal) and it can protect you, so everyone carried a 'pocket full of posy'. "ashes, ashes, we all fall down" So many people died at that time ( approximately 25 million people) that there wasn't much time to bury all of them, so they burned ALL the dead bodies. Fire=ashes, fall down=dead. End of explaination.....