These are the facts, as they are known.

For several hundred years, the English and other Europeans have been big on writing down nursery rhymes and children's stories. Especially popular rhymes and stories were collected in books as a matter of course. This was especially true of ones told in urban centers like London.

In the nineteenth century, many religious groups banned dancing. Therefore a new entertainment was developed, called in North America a play-party. It consisted of the people chanting a rhyme and moving to various directions. It was something like a square dance, except that it was in a circle and had no musical accompaniment. Simpler versions for children were created as well.

The first record of Ring-Around-the-Rosie was in 1881, as an example of a play-party rhyme.

Every version of it known is written in modern English, not Middle English. There are several variants, with the lines going differently in each.

It is supposed to represent the plague in London, either in 1347 or 1665.

This theory was first proposed by James Leasor in 1961.

Therefore, this rhyme supposedly lasted either 216 or 534 years, depending on which plague one's going by, purely by word-of-mouth. It was popular enough to remain unchanged for all that time, but managed to elude the collectors of rhymes and stories. It survived intact when the language shifted. James Leasor was able to pick out the exact version that survived intact with so many to choose from. He was the first person in either 296 or 614 years to figure out what the poem meant.

It's amazing the stupidity people are capable of when they're trying to be smart. Seriously, the best "evidence" they can come up with is, "Well, it could have happened." Sadly, the fact that it could have happened is no reason to think that it did, not when the most likely explanation is that it didn't.

And yet nine out of ten people Ba has spoken to believe it. The human race needs culling.

Couldn't agree more Ba. Alternatively they could be "encouraged" to check "facts" and "received wisdom" by checking them in resources such as Snopes

Just so long as you realise that Snopes is only written by other people just like yourself and should often be taken with a pinch of salt; for example, none of the versions of the song on that page are the same as the ones that people in England sing, I've never heard it being sung like that before by anyone anywhere.

As for it's origins, the original song, I guess we could never know seeing as people just make these things up and don't write footnotes regarding what they really mean; though stories and songs usually do reflect some aspect of the time they were written in, that simply can't be helped, but in the case of something like this we'll never know when the song was originally made - I think it's one of those things where it's pointless to argue about it one way or another, unless you have a time machine that can be programmed to take you back to significant points in history, like the first time this song was sung.

Oh yes... all sources of information should be treated that way

Except Ba

Obviously

Furthermore, on linguistic matters, snopes has an absolutely appalling track record.

The brits weren't that big on writing down 'folk rhymes' up until the victorian era (eg, the mid to late 1800's!), because there simply wasn't a NEED to record the stuff that everybody'd known since god knows when.

The problem is that you cannot prove something existed prior to 1881 (or whenever) if that's the first instance of it being written, but you cannot disprove that it did or didn't exist earlier.

As for language and word changes over time... meh. If we're going to consider that it COULD have changed, we have to consider that it might not have changed, or that any changes were primarily updates.

There's no profit in arguing only one side of an issue.

And for anyone who's interested, this is how it's supposed to go - in England anyway, and it's called 'Ring a ring o' roses':

• Ring a ring o' roses,
  A pocket full of posies,
  A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
  We all fall down

That's how I've always heard it, and my grandfather's grandfather, none of which saw it written down anywhere; with the accompanying information:

That's how they always tell it here, whether Snopes says it's true or not, and they've been saying that a long time before 1961, which doesn't mean it's true, but it can't really be said that it isn't either.

Well it keeps those who feel the need to make such baseless assumptions indoors, which is a good thing.

The unfortunate thing is that when something is writen down, people take it as fact and don't question it. Even if it is stupid.