Remember the old myth about the origin of the nursery rhyme of "Ring-a-ring-a roses, pocket full of posies, …" ? The story goes that it's a dark rhyme about the Black Plague back in the 1600s or the first Plague in the 1300s. (There is another less popular story that it's about the children in the mining towns up North in the Isles). It's a load of hooey. The rhyme was only recorded in Mother Goose in the 1800s, about 500 years after it was began?? Surely, not.
A convincing theory is that, the nursery rhyme has actually something to do with the puritanical wave that swept across New England. Dancing and revelry, incld. square dances, were frowned upon. Even banned in some places, actually. Young people found a way around these bans by calling the square dances, play-parties. Play-parties had lots of ring games with holding hands and dancing in circles.
But, there are others that state that there are actually two versions of the nursery rhyme. One has its roots in Middle English, while the other is a la Americana. Anyone, wants to play professor? (Why don't they research these kind of things anymore, instead of researching things like how many calories you burn if you chew gum 24/7/365?)
And oh, there is a fairly consistent theory of origin of the another popular rhyme (especially in the place I was born in as where the monsoons were bad),
"Rain, rain go away,
Come again another day,
Little Johnny wants to play;
Rain, rain go to Spain,
Never show your face again"
It originates from the Elizabethan era. Umm…the first Elizabethan era, not the current one :-) The Spanish Armada set sail to conquer England in the 1580s. The English underdogs defeated the Armada thanks to some nifty seamanship as well as to help from incredibly foul weather that dispersed the Armada fleet.
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