<Li> Sporle B (help info) </Li> <P> "Ring a Ring o' Roses" 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> <P> Variations, corruptions, and vulgarized versions were noted to be in use long before the earliest printed publications . One such variation was dated to be in use in Connecticut in the 1840s . </P>

The origin of the song ring around the rosie
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