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.

Dr. Thomas Muffet (possibly Moffett or Moufet), an entomologist who died in 1604, wrote The Silkwormes and their flies "lively described in verse". Miss Muffet is said to depict his daughter, Patience. Accreditation is deemed shaky by some, as the first extant version is dated 1805 in Songs for the Nursery, whose 1812 edition read "Little Mary Ester sat upon a tester . . . ." Halliwell's 1842 collection read "Little Miss Mopsey sat in a shopsey . . . ."

Mother Goose scholars agree that "Little Miss Muffet" is not about Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), supposedly frightened (according to some speculators) by John Knox (1505-1572), Scottish religious reformer.


— based on text in Mother Goose: From Nursery to Literature (McFarland Pub.) by Gloria T. Delamar