The nursery rhyme “Ring Around the Rosie,” was thought to be created during this time of the Black Plague in London, England. This was somewhere between 1347 to 1350. “Ring Around the Rosie” was a red, round rash which was the first symptom of the disease. “A pocket full of posies” was something used to ward off the disease and used to mask the stench of death. The practice of burning bodies of the dead is meant in the phrase, “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”

No one knows who created the nursery rhyme because it didn’t appear in print until 1881 about 500 years from the original time period. Kate Greenaway was the first person to write down the rhyme in her books Mother Goose and The Old Nursery Rhyme. This made the folklorists think about whether or not the nursery rhyme had a meaning and if it was true or not. They decided that it had no meaning, but some people still think that the rhyme has a meaning and dates back to the Black Plague.