Lyrics
Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet, Eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider, Who sat down beside her, And frightened Miss Muffet away.
#Little Miss Muffet at a glance
- Country of origin
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- Sung in
- English
- Words by
- Traditional
- First known
- 1805
- Best for ages
- 2–7
- Mood
- playful, traditional
- Last updated
- 25 July 2026
Meaning and origin
Two of this rhyme’s words have quietly fallen out of everyday English, which is part of its charm. A tuffet was most likely a small grassy mound to sit on; curds and whey is milk that has separated into soft lumps and watery liquid, a plain old food not unlike cottage cheese. So the picture is homely enough — a girl sitting on a hummock, eating her lunch — right up until the spider arrives.
It has been in print since 1805, though the great nursery-rhyme scholars the Opies thought it older, since it is put together much like “Little Jack Horner”. And, as with Horner, a tidy origin story grew up around it: that Miss Muffet was Patience Muffet, daughter of the Tudor physician and insect-collector Thomas Muffet, whose fondness for spiders supposedly explains the ending.
It is a lovely idea, and almost certainly not true — Muffet died around 1604, two centuries before the rhyme was written down, and the scholars found no real link. What survives is not the doctor’s daughter but the tiny drama every child recognises: peace, a spider, and a very quick exit.
Common questions
- What is a "tuffet", and what are "curds and whey"?
- A tuffet was probably a little grassy mound or hillock to sit on (the idea that it means a footstool may actually have come from misreading this very rhyme). Curds and whey are what you get when milk separates — the soft lumps and the watery liquid — an old, plain sort of food a bit like cottage cheese.
- How old is the rhyme?
- It first appears in print in 1805, in "Songs for the Nursery", though the Opies thought it was probably older, since it is built just like other early rhymes such as "Little Jack Horner".
- Was Miss Muffet a real girl?
- There is a well-loved story that she was Patience, daughter of the Tudor doctor and insect-collector Thomas Muffet — which would neatly explain the spider. But he died around 1604, two hundred years before the rhyme appeared, and the scholars who studied it doubted the connection. Another guess links it to Mary, Queen of Scots. Neither can be shown to be true.
