Children playing "Ring Around the Rosie" – around Captain Kirk...
...before they all fall down.
"Ring Around the Rosie" was a game and nursery rhyme played by young children, that originated on Earth around the 19th century.
A simple game, "Ring Around the Rosie" was played when any number of children joined hands and formed a circle around an object or person. They would then move in a circular orbit around the object or person while singing the song, and at the conclusion of the final verse, the children would collectively drop to the ground; after which, they could then stand up and repeat the process.
- Verses
- Ring around the rosie,
- Pocket full of posy;
- Ashes! Ashes!
- We all fall down!
The children of the Starnes Exploration Party, consisting of Tommy Starnes, Don Linden, Mary Janowski, Ray Tsing Tao, and Steve O'Connel, emerged from a cave and began playing, before Mary asked Captain Kirk to play with them following their discovery and introduction to the USS Enterprise landing party on Triacus in 2268. They all joined hands and circled Kirk as they sang the accompanying verses, laughing happily as they dropped to the ground on the last line.
This event came to be much of a shock to Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Leonard McCoy, who watched this game being played while the lifeless bodies of the children's parents lay nearby. McCoy later attributed their odd behavior to lacunar amnesia. (TOS: "And the Children Shall Lead")