Three mice run blind into a farmer's wife and don't come off well for it. It's one of the best-known rhymes in English purely for its tune and momentum, though the ending is sharper than the cheerful tone suggests.
Sung as a round: a second voice starts when the first reaches 'see how they run'.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
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 ever see such a thing in your life
As three blind mice?
How it's usually said today
Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run.
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife.
Did you ever see such a thing in your life
As three blind mice?
Traditional rhymes have no single fixed text. The main version on this page is as printed in our source edition; this one is the wording most people say today.
About this rhyme
This one is properly old. A version was printed in 1609, in a book of musical rounds by Thomas Ravenscroft, though the mice back then were not yet chased by the farmer's wife. That wording came along much later. You may have heard the rhyme really stands for Queen Mary I and three Protestant bishops she had burned. There is no evidence for that. The idea arrived long after the rhyme and stuck because it sounds clever.
For the actions, run three fingers on the spot, and give a quick chop of your hand on 'cut off their tails'. Slow right down on the final line so 'three blind mice?' lands as a real question. It suits a giggly moment more than a calm one.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition