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,
Nursery rhyme poem, similar to "Thirty days hath September", numbering the days of the month, was recorded in the 13th century. From the later Middle Ages there are records of short children's rhyming songs, often as marginalia. From the mid-16th century they begin to be recorded in English plays. "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man" is one of the oldest surviving English nursery rhymes. The earliest recorded version of the rhyme appears in Thomas d'Urfey's play "The Campaigners" from 1698. Most nursery rhymes were not written down until the 18th century, when the publishing of children's books began to move from polemic and education