Three Blind Mice is an English 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.^[1] 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.

Amateur music composer Thomas Oliphant (1799-1873)^[2] noted in 1843 that:

"This absurd old round is frequently brought to mind in the present day, from the circumstance of there being an instrumental Quartet by Weiss, through which runs a musical phrase accidentally the same as the notes applied to the word Three Blind Mice. They form a third descending, C, B, A"^[3]

Variations and uses

Joseph Holbrooke (1878-1958) composed his Symphonic Variations, opus 37, based on Three Blind Mice. Also, Joseph Haydn used its theme in the Finale (4th Mvt) of his Symphony 83 (La Poule) (1785-86); one of the 6 Paris Symphonies, and the music also appears in the final movement of English composer Eric Coates' suite The Three Men. "Three Blind Mice" was also used as a theme song for The Three Stooges and a Curtis Fuller arrangement of the rhyme is featured on the Art Blakey live album of the same name. A cover version was heard in the first James Bond film, Dr. No. The song is also the basis for Leroy Anderson's orchestral Fiddle Faddle.

In several sports (basketball and hockey, for example, which have three referees), "Three Blind Mice" is used as a derogatory phrase for poor referees. Bands also play the song to mock referees in similar cases. Such references, however, are frowned upon officially by both sports as unsportsmanlike.^[4][5][6] Before major-league baseball required four umpires at every game, there were regularly three. The Brooklyn Dodgers had a fan band called the "Sym-Phoney Band," led by Shorty Laurice, which started playing "Three Blind Mice" when the umpires came out onto the field until the league office ordered the team to stop.

See also

• Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
• List of James Bond henchmen in Dr. No

The nursery rhyme is also the signature tune of the murderer in Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap. It is referenced and sung throught the piece.

References

External links

• Scholarly analysis