Kits, Cats, Sacks, Wives, and Directions

[eredien]

So, weirdquark and I were thinking again.

We should stop that.

As I was going to St. Ives
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks.
Each sack had seven cats.
Each cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives:
how many were going to St. Ives?

And today a thought struck me:
Who's to say that they weren't all going in the same direction after all?

So we worked it out.
343 kits per sack.
49 cats per sack.
That's 392 felines per sack, folks.
Times seven sacks equals 2, 744 fuzzy creatures per wife.
Times seven wives equals 19,208 felines total.
Plus the seven wives, the man, and me: 19,217 beings.

If, that is, they are all going in the same direction after all.

For our next trick, we'll estimate the weight of the cats.

What were they doing with all those cats?

And why was the cheese standing alone?

Comments

[greyhawk.livejournal.com]

Maybe they stopped to rest? I mean, carrying that much would take a bit out of you. Or maybe it was near dusk and so they were settled in for dinner, but because there were so many of them, they had to settle in sooner than you did, going it solo?

This doesn't eliminate the possibility of insanity, in which case maybe they were going to St. Ives in INTENT, but were really waking away from it, in which case, assuming they walked all the way around the world, they are going to St. Ives, they're just taking the very very very very very very very very very very very very scenic route.