Windy, windy weather,
Cold and frosty weather,
When the wind blows
We all blow together.
I saw Peter!
When did you meet him?
Merrily, cherrily [so pronounced]
All fall down.
A ring, a ring of roses,
A pocketful of posies—
Ashem, ashem, all fall down.
—Sheffield (S. O. Addy).
(b) A ring is formed by the children joining hands. They all dance round, singing the lines. At the word “Hasher” or “Atcha” they all raise their hands [still clasped] up and down, and at “all fall down” they sit suddenly down on the ground. In Lancashire (Morton) they pause and curtsey deeply. The imitation of sneezing is common to all. Miss Peacock says, in Nottinghamshire they say “Hashem! Hashem!” and shake their heads. In the [Sheffield version] the children sing the first eight lines going round, and all fall down when the eighth is sang. They then form a ring by holding hands, and move round singing the next three lines, and then they all fall either on their knees or flat on their faces.
(c) Versions of this game, identical with the [Winterton one], have been sent me by Miss Winfield, Nottingham; others, almost identical with the second [Norfolk version], from Monton, Lancashire (Miss Dendy), North Staffs. Potteries, Norbury, Staffs., (Miss A. Keary), Earls Heaton, Yorks. (H. Hardy). Addy, Sheffield Glossary, gives a version almost identical with the last [Sporle version].
Addy, Sheffield Glossary, compares the old stories about rose-laughing in Grimm’s Teut. Myth. iii. 1101. “Gifted children of fortune have the power to laugh roses, as Treyja wept gold. Probably in the first instance they were Pagan beings of light, who spread their brightness in the sky over the earth—‘rose children,’ ‘sun children.’” This seems to me to be a very apposite explanation of the game, the rhymes of which are fairly well preserved, though showing in some of the variants that decay towards a practical interpretation which will soon abolish all traces of the mythical origin of game-rhyme. It may, however, simply be the making, or “ringing,” a ring or circle of roses or other flowers and bowing to this. Mr. Addy’s suggestion does not account for the imitation of sneezing, evidently an important incident, which runs through all versions. Sneezing has always been regarded as an important or supernatural event in every-day life, and many superstitious beliefs and practices are connected with it both in savage and civilised life. Newell (Games and Songs of American Children, p. 127) describes “Ring around the Rosie,” apparently this game, but the imitation of sneezing has been lost.
Ring by Ring
Here we go round by ring, by ring,
As ladies do in Yorkshire;
A curtsey here, a curtsey there,
A curtsey to the ground, sir.
—Hersham, Surrey (Folk-lore Record, v. 86).