Wordorigins.org

The children’s rhyme Ring Around the Rosie is not a reference to the Black Death of the Middle Ages, as is commonly touted by some. Instead, it is simply a rhyme about picking flowers and falling asleep after a long day of play.

The earliest recorded version of the rhyme appears in Kate Greenaway’s Mother Goose from 1881:

Ring-a-ring o’ roses,
A pocket full of posies,
Hush! hush! hush! hush!
We’re all tumbled down