Three Blind Mice
| "Three Blind Mice" | |
|---|---|
 Sheet music | |
| Nursery rhyme | |
| Published | c.1609 |
| Songwriter(s) | Thomas Ravenscroft |
"Three Blind Mice"is anEnglishnursery rhymeand musicalround.[1]It has aRoud Folk Song Indexnumber of 3753.
Lyrics[edit]
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,
- Who cut off their tails with a carving knife.
- Did you ever see such a sight in your life
- As three blind mice?[2]
Origins and meaning[edit]
A version of this rhyme, together with music (in a minor key), was published inDeuteromelia or The Seconde part of Musicks melodie(1609).[3]The editor of the book, and possible author of the rhyme,[4]wasThomas Ravenscroft.[1]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.[1]
Attempts to read historical significance into the words[2]have led to the speculation that this musical round was written earlier and refers toQueen Mary I of Englandblinding and executing threeProtestant bishops.[5]However, theOxford Martyrs,Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer, were burned at the stake, not blinded; although if the rhyme was made bycrypto-Catholics,the mice's "blindness" could refer to their Protestantism.[2]However, as can be seen above, the earliest lyrics don't talk about harming the three blind mice, and the first known date of publication is 1609, well after Queen Mary died.
The rhyme only entered children's literature in 1842 when it was published in a collection byJames Orchard Halliwell.[citation needed]
Variations[edit]
Amateur music composerThomas Oliphant(1799–1873)[6]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 wordThree Blind Mice.They form athirddescending, C, B, A.[7]
Robert Schumann's Kreisleriana #7, which is arguably about a cat (Murr), appears to be based upon "Three Blind Mice", but in a predominantly minor key. "Three Blind Mice" is to be found in the fugue which is the centerpiece of #7.[citation needed]
Joseph Holbrooke(1878–1958) composed his Symphonic Variations, opus 37, based onThree Blind Mice.Joseph Haydnused its theme in the Finale (4th Mvt) of hisSymphony 83 (La Poule)(1785–86); one of the 6Paris Symphonies,and the music also appears in the final movement of English composerEric Coates' suiteThe Three Men."Three Blind Mice" was used as a theme song forThe Three Stoogesand aCurtis Fullerarrangement of the rhyme is featured on theArt Blakeylive album of the same name. The song is also the basis forLeroy Anderson's 1947 orchestral "Fiddle Faddle".
The theme can be heard inAntonín Dvořák'sSymphony No. 9IV. Allegro con fuoco[8]andManuel de Falla'sEl Paño Moruno.
The British composerHavergal Brian(1876–1972) used the tune as the basis of his orchestral work "Fantastic Variations on an Old Rhyme" (1907–08). The work was originally intended as the first movement of a satirical "Fantastic Symphony" (Symphony No.1), a programmatic work, based on the nursery rhyme. The second movement was intended as a scherzo for pizzicato strings, depicting the souls of the departed mice going to heaven and the third movement was a Lament for the dead mice. Both these movements are lost. "Festal Dance" (1908) formed the finale, depicting the wild dance of triumph of the farmer's wife in which passing references to the tune can be heard. Having been performed separately, the first and last movements became independent works around 1914.[9]
The theme of the second movement ofSergei Rachmaninoff'sPiano Concerto No. 4(1926, revised 1928 and 1941) was criticized as resemblingThree Blind Mice.[10]
Acalypsoversion of the tune with new lyrics byMonty Normanwas recorded byByron Lee and the Dragonairesfor the filmDr. No,and is featured inits soundtrackas part of the track "Kingston Calypso".[11]The reworked rhyme alludes to the three black assassins whose deadly march through the streets ofKingston, Jamaicaopens the film. Other Jamaican versions includedancehallartists, likeJosey WalesandBrigadier Jerry.
"Complete version"[edit]
Published in 1904 byFrederick Warne & Co.in London, an illustrated children's book by John W. Ivimey entitledThe Complete Version of Ye Three Blind Mice,fleshes the mice out into mischievous characters who seek adventure, eventually being taken in by a farmer whose wife chases them from the house and into a bramble bush, which blinds them.[12]Soon after, their tails are removed by "the butcher's wife" when the complete version incorporates the original verse—although the earliest version from 1609 does not mention tails being cut off. The story ends with them using a tonic to grow new tails and recover their eyesight, learning a trade (making wood chips, according to the accompanying illustration), buying a house and living happily ever after.
The book is now in thepublic domain.[13][14]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^abcI. Opie and P. Opie,The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 306.
- ^abcW. S. Baring-Gould and C. Baring-Gould,The Annotated Mother Goose: Nursery Rhymes Old and New(Bramhall House, 1962), p. 156.
- ^abThomas Ravenscroft.,Deuteromelia or The Seconde part of Musicks melodie, or melodius Musicke. Of Pleasant Roundalaies;Printed for Thomas Adams (1609). "Rounds or Catches of 3 Voices, #13" (Online version)
- ^Christopher Baker,Absolutism and the scientific revolution, 1600–1720: a biographical dictionary,"Ravenscroft, Thomas (c. 1590–c. 1623)", Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002,ISBN978-0-313-30827-7,450 pp. (p. 319)
- ^Espoused by Albert Jack,Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes,Allen Lane (2008).ISBN978-1-84614-144-7.[page needed]
- ^Papers of the Manchester Literary Clubby Manchester Literary Club, Published by H. Rawson & Co., 1890
- ^La musa madrigalesca: Or, A Collection of Madrigals, Ballets, Roundelays, Etc., Chiefly of the Elizabethan Age; with Remarks and Annotations.By Thomas Oliphant, Published by Calkin and Budd, 1837
- ^Listening to Music Creativelyby Edwin Stringham, Published by Prentice-Hall, 1959
- ^"A fantastic symphony".
- ^Greenfield, Edward (1988).The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music.Penguin Books.ISBN0-14-046829-3.
- ^Monty Norman - The first man of James Bond music
- ^Complete Version of Ye Three Blind Mice Hardcover – 1900.FREDERICK WARNE & CO/PENGUIN. January 1900.Retrieved6 April2015.
- ^Complete version of ye three blind mice ([1909])at theInternet Archive
- ^Complete Version of ye Three Blind Mice by John W. IvimeyatProject Gutenberg
External links[edit]
