Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor...

Illustration to ring-a-ring-a-roses in Kate Gr...

The rhyming games of children, the innocent divining the future....
Known to be darker than at once imagined--- the so-called "haunting children's rhyme".

Most divining rhymes are counted out--- the number of buttons on a dress, the number of daisy petals plucked, the number of skips a stone makes, the number of uninterrupted turns of a jump rope. "Whom shall I wed? Whom shall it be? Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich man, Poor man, Beggar man, Thief?"

Most are innocent, or intended to be innocent.....

Yet, there are those rhymes that are believed to be innocent, until the darker histories are revealed. Case in point-- "Ring around the Rosie"

Who hasn't heard the connection of this "innocent" rhyme to the Great Plague or the Black Death?? The symptoms of "rosy rings", the need of posies to cover the stench of death, the violent sneezing episodes before the falling down of the dead.....

There is such a desire from adults for children to remain "innocent", and yet, there is such a desire from these same children to grow up much quicker than they are. But, there is no way to hide all the atrocities of the world from children. The death, destruction and devastation running through their playful rhymes ring ever truer and are felt much deeper, though hidden in the ramblings of innocence.

What better way to cope with the devastating truths of the world....would that we could all "hide" our fears in the singsong, divining rhymes with which children skip rope and count buttons....

Ring around the rosie....
Pocketful of posies....
Ashes, Ashes....
We. All. Fall. Down....

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