Visual impairment men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one feels a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement. "Three Blind Mice" is a medieval English nursery rhyme about three blind mice whose tails are cut off after chasing the farmer's wife. The work is explicitly incongruous, ending with the comment "Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three blind mice?" Poet John Milton, who went blind in mid-life, composed On His Blindness,
Three Blind Mice album of the same name. The song is also the basis for Leroy Anderson's orchestral "Fiddle Faddle". The British composer Havergal Brian (1876-1972) used the tune as the basis of his orchestral work "Fantastic Variations on an Old Rhyme" (1907-08). The work was originally intended as the first movement of a satirical "Fantastic Symphony" (Symphony No.1), a programmatic work, based on the nursery rhyme. The second movement was intended as a scherzo for pizzicato strings, depicting the souls of the departed mice going to heaven and the third movement was a Lament for the dead mice. Both these movements are