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Ring game

Ring a Ring o’ Roses

Good for:
Baby, Toddler
Tune:
The traditional playground tune

Ring a ring o’ roses, A pocketful of posies. Tisha! Tisha! We all fall down.

How to play

  1. “Ring a ring o’ roses, a pocketful of posies.” Hold hands in a circle and walk round. With a baby, hold them close and turn slowly on the spot.
  2. “Tisha! Tisha!” Pretend to sneeze, twice.
  3. “We all fall down.” Everyone sits down with a bump. With a baby in your arms, bend your knees and sink down gently together.

Where it comes from

Children were playing this game in America by the 1840s, and versions were in print by the 1850s. One of the early British printings is in Kate Greenaway’s Mother Goose (1881), which ends with everyone tumbling down. These words come from The Real Mother Goose (1916).

You may have heard that the rhyme is about the Great Plague of 1665, with the sneezing and falling down as signs of the disease. Folklorists, including Iona and Peter Opie, found nothing to back that up. The idea only became popular after the Second World War, and some of the oldest versions don’t have any sneezing at all. In some old versions, the “fall” may have been a curtsey or a bow.

Old words

  • posies: small bunches of flowers.
  • Tisha!: a sneeze. Most people say “A-tishoo!” today.

Tips

  • Two of you can play it: hold both your toddler’s hands and go round together.
  • Toddlers often like to fall down again and again. Add a second verse of your own, where everyone gets back up.

Where these words come from

Public domain. A traditional rhyme, played in America by the 1840s and printed in England by 1881. Text from The Real Mother Goose, illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1916), as transcribed by Project Gutenberg (eBook #10607). Original source

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