Originally the lyrics went, “ring around the Rosie, pocket full of posies, achoo, achoo, we all fall down!” The ring around the “rosie” was what the lesion looked like on the skin, the posies were thought to ward off the disease, so they often kept them in their pockets, and achoo was the sneezing symptoms. (I don’t remember why it was changed to “ashes”). Falling down of course meant dying. Pretty strange how they could’ve made a children’s song from the Black Plague...
