A riddle of 1730

This one’s been around a while. Just a little something to provoke your brain (and win your pint of green beer on a bet, if that’s how you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day).

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 now you know how they passed the time before TV or eBooks …
The answer, by the way, is only one was going to St. Ives – the narrator of the riddle.