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KZN Nusery Rhymes #9 - Three Blind Mice Mystery Cache

Hidden : 2/14/2016
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

The cache is not at the published co-ordinates.

This series of caches has been created to encourage young children to participate.

Please ask your child/ren to answer the questions below and to help you calculate the final coordinates.

Please do not remove attached Swag and swag dropped should preferably be Rhyme related. Thank you.

The gate is often closed but the pedestrian gate is unlocked.


Three Blind mice


A version of this rhyme, together with music, was published in Deuteromelia or The Seconde part of Musicks melodie (1609). The editor of the book, and possible author of the rhyme was Thomas Ravenscroft, who in 1609 was still a teenager. The original lyrics are:

Three Blinde Mice,
Three Blinde Mice,
Dame Iulian,
Dame Iulian,
The Miller and his merry olde Wife,
She scrapte her tripe licke thou the knife.

Attempts to read historical significance into the words have led to the speculation that this musical round was written earlier and refers to Queen Mary I of England blinding and executing three Protestant bishops, but problematically the Oxford Martyrs, Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer, were burned at the stake, not blinded; although if the rhyme was made by crypto-Catholics, the mice's "blindness" could refer to their Protestantism.   The rhyme only entered children's literature in 1842 when it was published in a collection by James Orchard Halliwell.

The modern words are:

Three Blind Mice

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 sight in your life,
As three blind mice?

Who cut off the tails? (5 words - in the description not the verse)

The final cache location is at S29 50.ABC E030 50.XYZ

A = The last letter - the Queen's number.

B = The 2nd letter of the Queen's name + her number.

C = The letter that appears most in the first word - 1.

X = The 1st letter - 2nd last letter.

Y = Half of 8th letter.

Z = The 9th letter - the 8th letter.

 

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

N = 1 naq M = 26

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)