Three Blind Mice

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Kurt from Tucson, Arizona.

travels of puss in boots junior by david corey three blind mice one day as puss junior was trudging along a pretty road on either side of which were fields of clover he came to a shady lane leading to an old farmhouse and just as he was about to open the gate an old woman came running toward him her gray hair was flying in the wind and the strings of her bonnet streamed out behind her like the tail of a kite and close at her heels scampered three little mice three blind mice see how they run chirped a robin in the apple tree they all ran after the farmer's wife yelped a little yellow dog who cut off their tails with a carving knife mooed a big white cow looking curiously over the old rail fence that bordered the shady lane Did you ever see such a sight in your life? inquired a little black hen, and she flew up on the rail close to the good-natured cow.

No, I never did, replied Puss Junior.

But, oh dear me, just then the old woman turned and cut off the tails of the three little mice with a great big slash of her carving knife.

We are a threesome, so we need a costume idea for the three of us.

Are we the Three Blind Mice?

Mm-mm.

The Three Stooges?

Would you like to sing a song with us? It's Constance's favorite.

Three blind mice, see how they run.

They all ran after the farmer's wife.

who cut off their tails with a carving knife.

Did you see such a thing in your life as three blind mice? Thanks for listening.

We'll catch you on the next episode.

Every once in a while there is a special kind of horror film that becomes a horror classic.

This is especially true for our auditory, motor, and visual senses.

Have you ever heard the song Three Blind Mice? Without listening to it, do the first three notes ascend or descend? You can probably hear the song in your mind's ear to answer that question.

Or maybe you've listened to so many of our episodes that you can now hear my voice whenever you think of this podcast even though you're not actually listening to it.

kind of weird for me to think about, but hopefully a good thing for you.

Okay.

And we will most likely, anyone that doesn't know Doctor No, will know it as the one with the three blind mice.

In the beginning, yes.

In the beginning with the intro sequence.

Because as this is the first, asterisk, James Bond movie, they haven't really found the pattern for the intro sequences yet.

While there are dancing women in this...

There are multiple songs in the beginning of this, including Three Blind Mice, which is weird, right? It's weird, but it's not bad.

When you have actually watched all of the James Bond films in total, this one stands out as being different.

So, ponder on that.

Okay, three blind mice and Mary Mary quite contrary get linked to Bloody Mary's Protestant burnings.

So, uh...

It says Humpty.

This is Three Blind Mice.

Okay.

So, the history spans multiple centuries and includes dramatic shifts in meanings.

The 1609 original, the earliest version, was published by teenager Thomas Ravenscroft in a musical composition titled...

Already.

Three blind mice.

I've-

Yes

... get it.

Three blind mice.

Okay.

Oh.

yeah.

The Three Little Mice.

They were somewhere between Finger Bob and The Clangers, weren't they?

Yeah.

After the war, in 1947, the BBC asked Agatha to write something for the 80th birthday celebration of Queen Mary, who was a fan.

Agatha wrote the radio play Three Blind Mice, which she then turned into the stage play The Mousetrap, which opened in 1952 and has been on stage ever since, with the exception of the aforementioned 15-month pandemic gap.

A film and television began adapting her work around the same time as well, though never of The Mousetrap as such, because of a contract stating that it can't be adapted until the West End production has been closed for non-emergency purposes for at least six months.

It's been performed over 30,000 times.