Nursery rhymes may not make sense to the 21st-century child. What’s the tuffet that Little Miss Muffet sat on when the first copies of the rhyme appeared in England in 1553? A chair, a stool, a plant, ...

What is the tuffet upon which Little Miss Muffet sat when the first copies of the nursery rhyme appeared in 1553 in England? A chair, a stool, a plant, a stone or maybe a small animal? And what are ...

Mr Spider: ‘It’s like this. To the best of my recollection, I have never met Miss Muffet. Nor was I anywhere near the tuffet in question on the day in question. 'However, if I was at or near the ...

But there also is another tuffet - a rounded clump of grass that might make a comfortable seat for Miss Muffet. Children’s books often have drawings of Miss Muffet on a stool, not a tuffet. And even ...

Little Miss Muffet’s first name was probably Patience. The heroine of the nursery rhyme is assumed to be Patience Moffat, the daughter of Thomas Moffat (d. 1604), an Elizabethan physician and author.

There is one word that spells joy for a child but dread for an adult, and that word is ‘Surprise!’. This occurred to me as I read about the mother-of-three who earlier this week discovered a round, ...

Not that many people have noticed its decline, but a once-immovable part of our national life seems to be finally on its way out. And there it goes: a whole cast of characters, herded towards the ...

Last week, I lived a nursery rhyme — with an Occam’s razor twist. I was a lot like Little Miss Muffet sans tuffet. In full disclosure, I had to look up tuffet just to be sure. (In case you’re curious, ...