Thread by @BillHolohanSolr

410 years ago today, on 11 October 1609, the children's rhyme "Three Blind Mice" was published in London by Frederick Warne & Co., in an illustrated children's book by John W. Ivimey entitled: "The Complete Version of Ye Three Blind Mice". A version of the rhyme, together with

music was published in Deuteromelia (1609); the editor was Thomas Ravenscroft (c.1582-1635), still a teenager at the time of its publication.
The original version was:
"Three Blinde Mice, Three Blinde Mice, Dame Iulian, Dame Iulian, the Miller & his merry olde Wife, she scrapte

her tripe licke thou the knife".
The "three blind mice" were Protestant loyalists (the Oxford Martyrs, Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer), accused of plotting against Queen Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII who were burned at the stake, the mice's "blindness" referring to their Protestant

beliefs. The Catholic queen, whose husband was King Philip of Spain, received a bad reputation during her short reign for executing Protestants.
The farmer’s wife refers to Mary. The book depicted the 3 mice as mischievous characters, seeking adventure, who are taken in by the

farmer whose wife chases them from the house into a bramble bush, blinding them. Later, their tails are removed by "the butcher's wife".
The story ends with them using a tonic to grow new tails & recover their eyesight, learning the trade of how to make wood chips, buying a

house and living happily ever after.

Now you know!