Is there really someone who hasn’t sang at least once the “Girotondo around” nursery rhyme? With a simple and catchy melody, a play of rhymes and a small choreography to dance with friends, the little ones can only be crazy.
What if we told you that this famous song for children hides, with good probability, a disturbing story of blood and death?
Premise: although there are not many texts that report certain data on the subject, nothing prohibits us from telling this curiosity based on what is available among the historical archives of European and overseas folklore. It is certainly true that there is no unique version of the text and melody of the song, but in this article we will refer to what is “universally” recognized and accepted in Italy and in the Anglo -Saxon world.
When the nursery rhyme was born “Girotondo around”
The British version of “Girotondo” or “Ring-a-ring-a-sees” (sometimes transcribed as “Ring a Ring O ‘Roses” or others) is a nursery rhyme of Anglo-Saxon folklore, presumably born in England around 1600. Cantata, transcribed and translated into numerous versions and languages, has become famous and has spread thanks to the well-known book “Mother Goose or the Old Nursery Rhymes“Published by Kate Greenaway in 1881 whose original title is” Ring Around the Rosie “.
The Italian Lyrics of Girotondo and the original version of the song
The song “Girotondo” in its Italian version (variable from region to region) is almost this:
Girotondo around
Falls the world
Fall the earth
All down on the ground
Any reader, unaware of the alleged historical implications of the Anglo -Saxon version, could say that the text does not conceal anything strange. But if we return to the origins and recover one of the possible “original” versions, the question changes:
Ring-A-Ring-a-Roses,
A Pocket Full of Posies,
A -ishoo! A -ishoo!
We all fall down.
But again, if we take the version of Kate Greenaway in the book “Goose Mother; Now, The Old Nuger Rhymes“Dated 1881, the rhymes act:
Ring-A-Ring-a-Roses,
A pocket full of posies;
Hush! Hush! Hush! Hush!
We’re all tumbled down.
Has a thrill along the back drop to you? We translate the text and analyze it towards the verse.
Translation and analysis of “Ring a Ring of Roses”
Literally, without big interpretations, the song reads:
Create a circle of roses / runs around the roses
A pocket full of herbs / aromas / flowers
Etschoo! Etschoo!
We all fall on the ground.
What will it ever want to say and why should we all fall on the ground? And what do the flowers of flowers have to do with it?
This nursery rhyme, as well as the other versions of existing folklore, is difficult to insert in a precise time. It is likely, according to several authors, which initially spread in England of 1600 and then reaching the rest of Europe and the world. Words can change as well as rhymes, but the structure, dynamics and melody remain more or less the same. Will it also be like that for the meaning of the song? Here we go into historical, linguistic, social, theories on theories issues … but something linguists have sensed it.
The particular historical period and the use of words could refer us to an event that decimated the English population: the great plague, spread between 1665 and 1666 in England. This epidemic was believed to have been an infection of bubonic plague, a disease caused by the bite of some rodents or their fleas, bearers of the bacterium Yersinia Pestis.
According to some theories, the song Girotondo around it may have been invented by the adults of the time to bring children closer to rather serious themes and with whom, alas, they could come into contact: disease and death.
Possible interpretations of the song for children
If we want to read it in these terms the text could lead us to interpret:
- The circle of roses as a reddish rash (A Rosy Rash) typical plague symptom;
- The pockets full of flowers (A Pocket Full of Posies) like the medical herbs used to treat the sick or aromatic mazzolini useful to cover the smell of the infected and corpses;
- Exclamation (A-Valo) like a sneeze (ours argument) and alternatively in the American version the ashes (Hush/Ashes) as a symbol of death or cremation. The word tissue in English means handkerchief, which could bring further tests to support the theory;
- All fall to the ground (We all fall down/we’re all tumbled down) as a gesture of physical weakness, loss of consciousness and death.
What we have reported has now become part of the collective imagination, being many to support this hypothesis. But they are as many linguists and historians who, on the basis of some details, support contrary hypotheses.
For example, the cremation of time in Europe was not very practiced, especially in a Catholic environment and if the corpses were many (in that case the tendency was to prefer the common pits). That Ring-a-ring It has nothing to do with the skin plague, but more to the circular social dance to be carried out around a bush, a bush or a person placed in the center of the circle, and that everyone down to the ground is actually a gesture of reverence. That there are no written sources of the existence of the nursery rhyme before 1800 and that it is far -fetched that the plague version survived for 200 years without having been written. Furthermore, many historical texts on the great plague do not mention the song or dance and, in addition, there are versions that differ a lot from the idea of death, mentioning love and courtship in the last stanzas (such as the version of Iona and Peter Opie, as well as William Wells Newell, both dated 1883).
The real meaning of the rhymes Girotondo around
Who is right then? We don’t know and maybe we’ll never know.
If we think about it, we are talking about beliefs within beliefs, folklore within folklore, what is called the “metapholklora”, something very difficult to unrest.
One important thing, however, we must remember it: the nursery rhymes are often invented by children for fun and it is normal that they change over time. A word is modified, then reported to a new group of young people, changed again until a totally different version is obtained than the starting one, perhaps which however reminds its structure or original meaning. We know it well, it’s the same effect as the wireless phone game!
On the other hand, we are also part of the story and we are writing it (and rewriting!) In every moment. Just now who knows how many children will be dancing “Girotondo” by changing the game to your liking …
