As I was going to St Ives

"As I was going to St Ives" is a traditional English-language nursery rhyme in the form of a riddle. Its Roud Folk Song Index number is 19772.

The most common modern version is:

The earliest known published version of it comes from a manuscript dated to around 1730 (but it differs in referring to "nine" rather than "seven" wives). The modern form was first printed around 1825.

There are a number of places called in England and elsewhere. It is generally thought that the rhyme refers to St Ives, Cornwall, when it was a busy fishing port and had many cats to stop the rats and mice destroying the fishing gear, although some people argue it was St Ives, Cambridgeshire as this is an ancient market town and therefore an equally plausible destination.

All potential answers to this riddle are based on its ambiguity because the riddle only tells us the group has been "met" on the journey to St. Ives and gives no further information about its intentions, only those of the narrator. As such, the 'correct' answer could be stated as "at least one, the person asking the question plus anyone who happens to be travelling in the same direction as him or her".

If the group that the narrator meets is assumed not to be travelling to St. Ives the answer could be one person going to St. Ives: the narrator. This is the most common assumption, as the purpose of the riddle was most likely to trick the listener into making long winded calculations only to be surprised by the simplicity of the answer.

If it is not accepted that there is a 'trick' answer, then there are numerous mathematical answers, the most common of which is 2802: 1 man, 7 wives, 49 sacks, 343 cats, and 2401 kits, plus the narrator. If the narrator met the group as they were also travelling to St. Ives and were overtaken by the narrator the answer in this case is all are going to St. Ives. The ambiguity that leads to this answer may be a less strict modern use of the word 'met' where it replaces the more accurate 'passed' or 'overtook'; "to meet someone on the road" may have been commonly used for those going in opposite directions on narrow roads as in the first edition of The Highway Code.

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

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