Tweet
Little Miss Muffet
Spoken Voice: Helen Raw
From the TwinkleTrax album "Vol. 1: A Sailor Went To Sea - 20 Favourite Nursery Rhymes and Kid's Songs"
Download this mp3 here:
Sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey
Along came a spider
And sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away
The identity of "Little Miss Muffet" is up for debate.
One claim is that the rhyme refers to Mary, Queen of Scots (1543-1587), who sat on the Scottish throne as the Catholic Queen of a Protestant Country, and who was frightened of the Protestant reformer, John Knox (1510-1572). However, literary scholars dismiss this as urban legend.
Another theory is that she is Patience Muffet, daughter of the Puritan entomologist Dr. Thomas Muffet (1553-1604). Muffet's 1599 book of turgid verses, "The Silkwormes And Their Flies", certainly confirms that he fancied himself as a poet, and his name and chosen subject matter point to him having written it.
However, the first known publication of the rhyme was not until 1805, in "Songs For The Nursery" - more than 200 years after Muffet's death.
Early versions of the rhyme suggest that she sat on a "buffet" - a north of England word for a three legged stool. A tuffet is a grassy hillock.
Curds and Whey is made by curdling milk so that it separates out into solids and liquids - part of the process of making cheese. Cottage Cheese is the nearest modern equivalent.
Origins text ©2011 TwinkleTrax Children's Songs.