<P> A reference to a young children's game named Ring o' Roses occurs in an 1846 article from the Brooklyn Eagle . A group of young children (the eldest being about seven) form a ring, from which a boy takes out a girl and kisses her . </P> <P> An early version of the rhyme occurs in a novel of 1855, The Old Homestead by Ann S. Stephens: </P> <P> A ring--a ring of roses, Laps full of posies; Awake--awake! Now come and make A ring--a ring of roses . </P> <P> The novel goes on to describe a nineteenth - century Fourth of July celebration by children housed in a hospital in Roosevelt Island, New York (then known as "Blackwell's Island"):' Then the little girls began to seek their own amusements . They played "hide and seek," "ring, ring a rosy," and a thousand wild and pretty games' . </P>

The real story of ring around the rosie