Did you know that the nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosey" is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores ("Ring around the rosey"), these sores would smell very badly so common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that it would cover the smell of the sores ("a pocket full of posies"). Furthermore, people who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease ("ashes, ashes, we all fall down").
there's a museum in London about the dark ages and in the room where they are talking about the bubonic plague they had that song in the background . . . creepy little kids singing it too. I caught some shit over here in Paris but dont think its too bad.