<Li> Sporle A (help info) </Li> <Li> Sporle B (help info) </Li> <P> "Ring a Ring o' Roses" or "Ring Around the Rosie" or "Ring a Ring o' Rosie" is a nursery rhyme or folksong and playground singing game . It first appeared in print in 1881, but it is reported that a version was already being sung to the current tune in the 1790s and similar rhymes are known from across Europe . It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7925 . Urban legend says the song originally described the plague, specifically the Great Plague of London, or the Black Death, but folklorists reject this idea . </P> <P> It is unknown what the earliest version of the rhyme was or when it began . Many incarnations of the game have a group of children form a ring, dance in a circle around a person, and stoop or curtsy with the final line . The slowest child to do so is faced with a penalty or becomes the "rosie" (literally: rose tree) from the French rosier) and takes their place in the center of the ring . </P>

Where does the rhyme ring a ring of roses come from