{"id":3875,"date":"2013-05-04T00:05:31","date_gmt":"2013-05-04T07:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=3875"},"modified":"2013-05-03T21:53:55","modified_gmt":"2013-05-04T04:53:55","slug":"three-blind-mice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2013\/05\/04\/three-blind-mice\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Blind Mice"},"content":{"rendered":"

One day when my middle daughter and I were sitting and waiting in her pediatrician’s office, she noticed a painting on the wall of a children’s nursery rhyme. And we wondered who had written it, what it might be about, and when might it have been composed. So I did a bit of research by way of Google and Wikipedia. The children\u2019s song Three Blind Mice<\/em> was first published four hundred years ago this year, in 1609. The song appeared in Deuteromelia<\/em> or The Seconde part of Musicks Melodie<\/em>. The words in 1609 were not exactly the same as those in the current version of the song:<\/p>\n

\tThree Blinde Mice, three Blinde Mice,
\n\tDame Iulian, Dame Iulian,
\n\tThe Miller and his merry olde Wife,
\n\tshe scrapte her tripe; licke thou the knife.
\n\tThree Blinde Mice, three Blinde Mice.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\t\u201cDame Iulian\u201d is the Dame Julian also known as Julian of Norwich who lived from 1342 to 1416. She is best known for her book, Revelations of Divine Love<\/em> (or Showings<\/em>). She lived in times of turmoil and rejected the prevailing notion that suffering was a punishment from God. Instead, she believed that God loved people and wanted to save everyone. One of her best known quotations is the phrase, \u201cAll shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,\u201d as an answer to the question some have about what God will do with those who have never heard of Jesus or the Gospel.<\/p>\n

\tAs to why she appears in this song? No one knows.<\/p>\n

\tWhy is her name spelled \u201cIulian\u201d rather than \u201cJulian\u201d in the song? For that we do have an answer. It\u2019s because the letter \u201cJ\u201d was the last letter to be added to the alphabet. \u201cJ\u201d was originally simply an alternative version of \u201cI.\u201d The first English-language book to make a clear distinction between \u201cI\u201d and \u201cJ\u201d was published in 1634. Since the lyrics \u201cDame Iulian\u201d appear in a book of 1609, obviously \u201cJ\u201d had not, as yet, come into common use.<\/p>\n

\tThe word \u201cscrapte\u201d is equivalent to modern English \u201cscraped.\u201d \u201cTripe\u201d means the \u201centrails\u201d or \u201cbelly\u201d and given the context in the song, most likely means \u201cbelly\u201d there. Metaphorically it was sometimes used contemptuously of a person. \u201cLicke\u201d is simply an older spelling of \u201click.\u201d Thou, of course, is equivalent to \u201cyou.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe modern lyrics of the tune are different, of course:<\/p>\n

\tThree blind mice. Three blind mice
\n\tSee how they run. See how they run.
\n\tThey all ran after the farmer\u2019s wife,
\n\tWho cut off their tails with a carving knife,
\n\tDid you ever see such a sight in your life,
\n\tAs three blind mice?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tThe book that first had the tune in it, Deuteromelia<\/em>, was one of three collections of folk music edited by one Thomas Ravescroft. He was an English composer and editor most well known for compiling collections of British folk tunes. Pammelia<\/em>, the first volume, was also published in 1609. The third volume, Melismata<\/em> didn\u2019t come out until 1611. Some have suggested that Ravenscroft was the author of the original lyrics for Three Blind Mice<\/em> which is certainly possible since he was a composer of music himself, though his own original works are mostly forgotten today. His known, but rarely performed, compositions include eleven anthems, three motets for five voices and four fantasias for viols. <\/p>\n

\tThe time of Ravenscroft\u2019s birth is uncertain. Sources put it at either 1582 or 1592. Given that the later date would make him a teenager when Deuteromelia<\/em> was published, I believe it is more likely that his real birth year is closer to 1582. He also wrote a treatise on music theory, A Briefe Discourse of the True (but Neglected) Use of Charact\u2019ring the Degrees<\/em>, published in London in 1614.<\/p>\n

\tAs for the best-known piece of music that Ravenscroft is associated with, Three Blind Mice<\/em>, there has been a lot of speculation regarding the possible hidden meanings in the song. Some have suggested that the \u201cfarmer\u2019s wife\u201d is a veiled reference to Queen Mary I of England. She supposedly blinded and executed three Protestant bishops. Unfortunately for the theory, the three bishops, Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer were not, in fact, blinded. Instead they were burned at the stake. Beyond that, there\u2019s the simple fact that the lyrics are dated a few years after<\/em> Mary had died, so it\u2019s hard to see why a song would have been made up about her at such a late date. Others have suggested that the song somehow references the beliefs of Julian of Norwich, since she is mentioned in the original lyrics. <\/p>\n

\tThe tune from the song Three Blind Mice<\/em> has been adapted and reused by later composers. For instance, Joseph Haydn used the theme in the fourth movement of his Symphony 83 (La Poule<\/em>) around 1785 or 86. More recently, Three Blind Mice<\/em> was used as the theme song for The Three Stooges<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\tIn both hockey and basketball, since there are three referees, the phrase \u201cThree Blind Mice\u201d is used sometimes as an insult against bad refs. At high school games, bands have occasionally been known to play the song whenever the referees make a call that is unpopular. Playing the song in such circumstances, of course, is frowned upon and considered unsportsmanlike behavior.<\/p>\n

\tIt used to be that there were only three umpires in baseball, instead of the four used today. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Brooklyn Dodgers had a band called the Ebbets Field “Sym-phony” led by Jack \u201cShorty\u201d Laurice. It started playing \u201cThree Blind Mice\u201d whenever the umpires would walk out onto the field. Eventually, however, the baseball league ordered the team to stop doing that since it annoyed the umpires.<\/p>\n

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One day when my middle daughter and I were sitting and waiting in her pediatrician’s office, she noticed a painting on the wall of a children’s nursery rhyme. And we wondered who had written it, what it might be about, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[15,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3875"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3877,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3875\/revisions\/3877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}