AS I was going to St Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
And every wife had seven sacks,
And every sack had seven cats,
And every cat had seven kits;
Kits, cats, sacks, wives,
How many were going to St Ives?
Another popular riddle posing as a nursery rhyme (see also Flour of England and In Marble Walls as White as Milk), this one sets out to remind children that commonsense is even more valuable than applied mathematics. Although the earliest version of the rhyme was published in 1730, a similar riddle appears in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, dating from around 1650 bc. On hearing the riddle, many have fallen into the obvious trap – insisting that the answer is found by multiplying the number seven. The repetition of seven, a magical number in many cultures (see Solomon Grundy), seems to emphasize this, seven wives, seven sacks, seven cats and seven kittens multiplied together equalling 2,401, not including the man accompanying them all. But in fact the answer is one – the narrator himself. Because if you were going to St Ives and met all these people on your way, then presumably they are all coming back from St Ives, not going there. There’s also a clue in the name Ives – ‘I’ (‘I’ve’) or ‘Me’.