Little Miss Muffet

Origins of Little Miss Muffet

Like many nursery rhymes, there is some controversy and mystery surrounding the possible hidden meanings of Little Miss Muffet, both symbolically and linguistically.

There are many questions people have pondered.  

Such as, was Little Miss Muffet the first “documented” person with arachnophobia. Or did she purposely spill her curds and whey because it was an unappetizing ? When questioned about what happened, perhaps she blamed it on a spider to stay out of trouble. Maybe the curds and whey gave her a stomachache and the spider, believed to cure various ailments if swallowed, was there for medicinal purposes. Is this a simply a verse about a young girl eating a meal and being frightened by a bug? Or could these characters represent real people prominent in 16 th century England’s history?

Many Brookmans Park residents believe Dr. Thomas Muffet, who lived from 1553 to 1604, was the father of Little Miss Muffet, and that he had composed the cute little nursery rhyme which millions of children around the world have recited since his day:

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider, who sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

One theory suggests that his daughter Patience was Little Miss Muffet, but as the oldest printed version of the rhyme is dated 1805, that seems unlikely. Muffet had no children of his own; and the two stepdaughters from his second marriage to a widow named Catherine Brown would probably have been Little Miss Browns. In that case, the doctor would have written Little Miss Brown / Went to Town…

A second theory was that Little Miss Muffet referred to Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), who was said to have been frightened  by John Knox (1505-1572), Scottish religious reformer. The rhyme might then have been “Along came John Knox / That wily old fox..” The 1812 edition of Songs for the Nursery has a rhyme telling us that Little Mary Ester sat upon a tester. Thirty years later, Halliwell's 1842 collection included Little Miss Mopsey sat in a shopsey.