Three Blind Mice
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Three Blind Mice is a children's nursery rhyme and musical round.
Song
The rhyme was first published by Thomas Ravenscroft in 1609. The original lyrics are:
- Three Blinde Mice,
- three Blinde Mice,
- Dame Iulian,
- Dame Iulian,
- The Miller and his merry olde Wife,
- shee scrapte her tripe licke thou the knife.
The modern words are:
- Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
- See how they run. See how they run.
- They all ran after the farmer's wife
- She cut off their tails with a carving knife.
- Did you ever see such a thing in your life
- As three blind mice.
There is an theory that this musical round was written earlier and refers to Queen Mary I of England blinding and executing three Protestant bishops. The earliest lyrics do not talk about directly killing the three blind mice and are dated after Queen Mary died, however, "she scrapte her tripe licke thou the knife" implies they were prepared and consumed if not a reference to tasting the blood of a slain adversary.
There is a narrative ambiguity at the heart of the rhyme, which is the question over whether the mice are chasing the farmer's wife after she cut their tails off, or whether she cut their tails off after they began chasing her.
