why where the mice blind? where they bornthat way and had come together in a kind of mousey support group taken to troubling farmers wives? where they made blind by the crue knife wielding wife? or is it somthing much more troubling?
2006-10-02 05:49:36 · 5 answers · asked by tarri 3 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Polls & Surveys
There are two common historical pretexts to this song:
The first of which being the Black (Bubonic) plague of London 1665 in which the symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy) and blindness suffered later in the advanced stages. (Three Blind mice, of which one is presently unable to locate a suitable source.)
The plague was believed halted by the Great Fire of London in 1666 which killed the rats that spread the disease through water sources. (In any case, the buildings had exceptionally poor sanitary conditions.)
The second story in which, "three blind mice" are Hugh Latimer, Ridley and Archbishop Cranmer, great Reformers and leading men of Protestant belief in the English reformation of 1555.
Another version believes that the "three blind mice" refers to the estates of the Queen and her husband King Philip of Spain.
The 'farmer's wife' is representative of Mary Tudor (bloody Mary), daughter of King Henry VIII, reigned as Queen of England. She was a staunch Catholic who decreed the return of England to the Papal Rome and discovered resistance from the three reformers whom she burnt at the stake. (No mutilation of eyes were involved.)
2006-10-02 06:08:33 · answer #1 · answered by pax veritas 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
According to one Merrie Melody cartoon, the three mice weren't so blind when a cute lady mouse walked by, leading one to believe that the blindness was just a ploy for sympathy.
The nursery rhyme does say the farmer's wife cut off their tails with a carving knife, but never holds her responsible for their possible loss of eyesight.
2006-10-02 05:53:59 · answer #2 · answered by leehoustonjr@prodigy.net 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is a metaphor for family members who let the lady of the house do as she pleases for fear that if they tell her she is wrong she will become hysterical and turn the knife, so to speak , on herself.
2006-10-02 05:54:08 · answer #3 · answered by LORD Z 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they should've never messed with the farmer's wife.
2006-10-02 05:51:09 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
They aren't really blind, they are deaf.
But, that's a secret.
SHHH!!
:)
2006-10-02 05:52:33 · answer #5 · answered by Pistaccio 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋