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
The answer is one because the trick is that you’re supposed to be so dazzled by the maths that you forget the “I was going…” part. I don’t buy it! This riddle poses a few questions. What if this man met the man with numerous cat obsessed wives while they were all on the way to St Ives and happened to just overtake them? If I added it up right there was 3402 people in that sack loving group so they’d have been moving slowly enough.
Secondly, surely there was other people on that road other than the one man who was supposedly travilling there. If not you have to wonder why would anyone actually want to go to St Ives in the first place if only one person has the desire to go there at any given time. And the kind of people who go are polygamist cat crazed people who keeps their pets in sacks?
