Little Miss Muffet
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
LITTLE MISS MUFFET (J8x32) 3C (4C set) Chris Ronald Formation Foundations1- 8 1s set, cast (2s step up) and turn 1¼ LH to end on 1st corner diagonal and retain LH
9-16 1s dance the Spoke:
9-10 Balance-in-line with 1st corners, drop RH and 1s move anticlockwise to 2nd corners (pas-de-basque throughout)
11-16 Repeat with next 3 corners to end RH with 1st corners
17-24 1s turn 1st corners RH (corners dance for 4 bars), pass RSh; turn 2nd corners RH (corners dance for 4 bars) and pass RSh to finish in 2nd place own sides
25-32 All circle 6H round and back
(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)
Dance Information
"Little Miss Muffet" is an English nursery rhyme of uncertain origin, first recorded in 1805. It is listed as number 20605 in the Roud Folk Song Index.For over a century, there has been debate over the precise meaning of the word tuffet. The rhyme was first published in Songs for the Nursery (1805), and numerous variations have appeared since.
The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes provides the following version:
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
There came a big spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.
Older versions sometimes use "of" rather than "her" in line 3, and refer to a "little spider" as in this example dating between 1837 and 1845:
Little Miss Muffet
She sat on a tuffet,
Eating of curds and whey;
There came a little spider,
Who sat down beside her,
And frighten'd Miss Muffet away.
Although the word tuffet is now sometimes used to mean a type of low seat, the word in the rhyme probably originally referred to a grassy hillock, small knoll or mound (a variant spelling of an obsolete and rare meaning of "tuft").
The Oxford English Dictionary calls the "hassock or footstool" meaning "doubtful", and "perhaps due to misunderstanding of the nursery rhyme".
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word tuffet in the nursery rhyme may refer to "a grassy hillock, a small knoll or mound."
Earlier recorded uses of tuffet with the related meaning of "tuft," such as a cluster of short-stalked leaves or flowers growing from a common point, date back to 1553. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary suggests the word comes from the Anglo-French tuffete, derived from tufe, meaning "tuft."
Many illustrators have depicted Miss Muffet sitting on a mound or hillock, including John Everett Millais (1884) and Arthur Rackham (1913).

"Little Miss Muffet" John Everett Millais (1829–1896), Painting, c. 1884
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Text from this original Little Miss Muffet article on Wikipedia.
Image from John Everett Millais, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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