Little Miss Muffet sat in the corner eating her curds away. Out came a spider and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.

This would be my grandmother’s interpretation of the Little Miss Muffet tale. I think this again shows how variation can occur. I heard the tale like this:

Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider that sat down beside her, frightened Miss Muffet, spilling her curd and whey.

This would be an example of two different versions of the same tale. Both have the two characters: Miss Muffet, and the spider. Both have curds. And both have the spider frightening Miss Muffet. The difference seems mainly to be in how Miss Muffet reacted to the spider. In the first version (told by Midori) Miss Muffet is frightened away. In the second (told my me) Miss Muffet seems to be startled by the spider causing her to spill her curds and whey.

There may be deeper meaning in this tale, the spider my represent something that little girls might need to be scared of. This being the case it makes sense that for Midori, that Miss Muffet runs away, where as in my version Miss Muffet simply stays there, but is frightened. This may have to do with the fact that I am a male, and may actually be taking the meaning of the tale more literally to be a spider, and that I wouldn’t be that scared of a spider, so why would Miss Muffet run away.