As I Was Going to St Ives

"As I was going to St Ives" is a traditional nursery rhyme which is generally thought to be a riddle. The earliest known published version of it dates to around 1730, although a similar problem appears in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (Problem 79), dated to around 1650 BC. The words are, in one version, as follows:


 * 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?

A second version is:


 * As I was going to St Ives
 * I met a man with seven wives


 * Seven wives with seven sacks
 * Seven sacks with seven cats
 * Seven cats with seven kits


 * Kits, cats, sacks, wives
 * How many were going to St Ives?

There are a number of places called St Ives in England and elsewhere.

Solution
The answer to the riddle is usually said to be one: the person reciting the rhyme is the only one who is explicitly stated as going to St Ives, and everyone else met by them assumed to be travelling the opposite direction, although they could be going anywhere else including nowhere at all.

Other possible solutions
The following interpretations of the riddle reflect the ambiguity of the language, which could originally have been specific to the normal social expectations of a period in history. The idea of meeting somebody on a journey obviously depends on the means of transport and the kind of journey being undertaken. If the route to St Ives is basically one road with traffic moving both ways along it, it is reasonable to assume that "meeting" someone will involve them coming the other way towards you. To be accurate you would "pass" somebody going in the same direction or stationary by the roadside. You could also meet them at a junction if they were crossing your route on their way to somewhere else.

Depending on how the question is interpreted, the answer could also be zero: the person travelling to St Ives is not any of "kits, cats, sacks, wives". Even with this interpretation, however, the answer could be one: in the case the narrator is a wife.

Going away from St Ives were: one (1) man, seven (7) wives, seven times seven (49) sacks, seven times seven times seven (343) cats, and seven times seven times seven times seven (2,401) kits, making a total of 8 humans, 49 sacks, and a somewhat implausible 2,744 felines; a grand total of 2,800 kits, cats, sacks, and wives (or 2,801 if you include the man). However, as "sacks" are inanimate objects, 2752 presumably living creatures were headed away from St. Ives.

Although it is usually assumed that the man with the wives was going away from St Ives, it may well be true that they were going to St Ives: obviously, one might easily overtake them if they had to drag along sacks filled with 2,744 cats and kittens. The sheer weight of the animals would slow them down. In that case, the answer is 2802, or 2753 if the sacks are not counted.

Another solution derives from the fact that the narrator mentions that the man has seven wives, but does not explicitly state that the wives are present, nor their sacks, cats, and kits. If the man is travelling to St. Ives and not away, the answer could be two, one, or zero (depending on if you count only wives, sacks, cats, and kits, and if the narrator be a wife).

Yet another answer could be that the man and his cadre of wives, cats, and kittens could be living in a house along the way to St Ives, and the narrator simply paused along the way at his house.

Another solution would treat the riddle as a red herring, and state that the average number of wives, sacks, cats and kittens travelling to a large market town in the 18th century could easily number much more than the 2801 mentioned in the riddle.

One could also look at it in another way. "...I met a man..." could indeed refer to a man moving from the place, moving to the place or just standing or living somewhere along the track.

Another involves the use of past tense – "Every wife had seven sacks,". Yesterday he had money, today he has not. Using this past tense could mean that either a wife was carrying seven sacks, or used to carry seven sacks but at the moment both men meet one or more sacks were missing. The same would apply for a cat which had seven kits. Perhaps 1 of the kits died; The cat still has 6 kits, but had 7.

Another solution is that the man met was not monogamous, and had 7 wives. Therefore, this scenario is brought forth:

The narrator is going to St. Ives, and stops at a pub, or someplace similar, for a quick rest. While there, he meets the man, who tells the narrator about his multiple wives, who are at home, each with their seven sacks, cats, and kittens.

That means that only one, the narrator, was going to St. Ives.

Rhind Mathematical Papyrus
A similar problem is found in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (Problem 79), dated to around 1650 BC. The papyrus is translated as follows :

The problem appears to be an illustration of an algorithm for multiplying numbers. The sequence 7, 7 × 7, 7 × 7 × 7, ..., appears in the right-hand column, and the terms 2,801, 2 × 2,801, 4 × 2,801 appear in the left; the sum on the left is 7 × 2,801 = 19,607, the same as the sum of the terms on the right. Note that the author of the papyrus miscalculated the fourth power of 7; it should be 2,401, not 2,301. However, the sum of the powers (19,607) is correct.

The problem has been paraphrased by modern commentators as a story problem involving houses, cats, mice, and grain, although in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus there is no discussion beyond the bare outline stated above. The hekat was 1/30 of a cubic cubit (approximately 4.8 litre).

Popular Culture
This "riddle" was used to test Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson in Die Hard with a Vengeance. Neither seems to have heard the rhyme before, although it is a well-known children's poem. In this case, the villian applies the traditional "twist", in which the correct answer is 1.