Sorry to be slow replying. The "gospel" thing -- you can just quit when the explanation gets tedious (sounds of rapid clicking). "Gospel" meant "news/story of God;" "god" had a short "o" in Old English, virtually unchanged in MnE. "Good" was spelled the same ("god") but had a long vowel ("oh") which develops typically into the "oo" sound in MnE. So if it had meant "good news," it would have developed into "goospel." The confusion has to do with the Greek from which "gospel" was *very* loosely translated/derived/inspired: "eu" (good) + "angelion" (message/news) --> evangelion (the "v" is just a hiatus-bridge, keeps you from ripping your throat up in making a u-turn through your vowels). Yes, I can see this is pedantic, but somebody asked.

The "ring around the rosy" seems to have the earliest form as "ring a ring a ("of"?) roses," and there's variation in the lines (where American kids say "ashes, ashes" I've heard British chilluns say "a tissue, a tissue," but that's likely to be very modern). My best guess is, it's a children's carol or ring-dance, with the "rosie" some object or nominated person ("it") in the center -- cp. "here we go round the mulberry bush"). We can often find rational meaning behind apparent nonsense in children's lore, but hey, sometimes, there's a layer of irreducible nonsense. It frustrates the detective in me, but as a parent, I'm charmed.

Best,

Adam