How many strings would you commonly find on a marionette?

A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms of theatres or entertainment venues. They have also been used in films and on television. The attachment of the strings varies according to its character or purpose. A common marionette has nine strings—one to each hand, one to each leg, one to each shoulder, one to each ear, and one to the spine—but the strings may number from three to nearly 30. In French marionette = "little Mary". One of the first figures to be made into a marionette was the Virgin Mary, hence the name.