What is it about? I heard once, but forgot. Can someone tell me?

by Anonymous 13 years ago

The @389535 (Me!!!!!! =)): The black plage.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

*Plague. "Plage" sounds like some kind of obscure military rank.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I could've sworn there was a post like this before, with debates in the comments whether it was the black plague or not.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

There has been, I'll try and dig it up.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

http://amirite.net/618193

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The first case of it appearing in any form in print was hundreds of years after the bubonic plague ravaged, and red rings were rarely a symptom of the disease anyways. There are dozens of versions of this rhyme, many of which have nothing to do with symptoms of the plague, and explanations of the connection with the plague vary depending on who you ask. It's also bizarre that children would have been singing this song for, what, 700 years? before anybody realized they were singing this song about the plague.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

It's hardly been 700 years. It first came into print in 1881 and was first sung around the 1790s.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Okay, that's a stronger bit of evidence that it isn't about the black plague than what I had originally included...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

So disturbing.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I remember I was playing it at my babysitter's house with her son and he thought he had won it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Nope, it's still just as fun.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

earlier in history, when we were learning about medival europe, we were talking about that song. creepy!!!!!!! (once at a friends b day party we were at her old school at night for a harry potter scavenger hunt, and a girl was singing that song all demented)

by Anonymous 12 years ago