Nursery rhymes may not make sense to the 21st-century child. What’s the tuffet that Little Miss Muffet sat on when the first copies of the rhyme appeared in England in 1553? A chair, a stool, a plant, ...

But there also is another tuffet - a rounded clump of grass that might make a comfortable seat for Miss Muffet. Children’s books often have drawings of Miss Muffet on a stool, not a tuffet. And even ...

Another theory posits that Little Miss Muffet was Mary, Queen of Scots. The spider is said to represent Protestant John Knox, a Scottish Reformation leader who protested Mary's Roman Catholic reign.

What is the tuffet upon which Little Miss Muffet sat when the first copies of the nursery rhyme appeared in 1553 in England? A chair, a stool, a plant, a stone or maybe a small animal? And what are ...