What did the 3 little pigs build with
A Summary and Analysis of the ‘Three Little Pigs’ Fairy Tale – Interesting Literature
LiteratureBy Dr Oliver Tearle
The anonymous fable or fairy tale of the Three Little Pigs is one of those classic anonymous tales which we hear, and have read to us, when we are very young. The fable contains many common features associated with the fairy tale, but there are some surprises when we delve into the history of this well-known story. Let us begin with a summary of the Three Little Pigs tale before proceeding to an analysis of its meaning and origins.
The Three Little Pigs: plot summary
First, a brief summary of the tale as it’s usually told. An old sow has three pigs, her beloved children, but she cannot support them, so she sends them out into the world to make their fortune. The first (and oldest) pig meets a man carrying a bundle of straw, and politely asks if he might have it to build a house from.
The man agrees, and the pig builds his house of straw. But a passing wolf smells the pig inside the house.
He knocks at the door (how you can ‘knock’ at a door made of straw is a detail we’ll gloss over for now), and says: ‘Little pig! Little pig! Let me in! Let me in!’
The pig can see the wolf’s paws through the keyhole (yes, there’s a keyhole in this straw door), so he responds: ‘No! No! No! By the hair on my chinny chin chin!’
The wolf bares his teeth and says: ‘Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.’
He does as he’s threatened to do, blows the house down, and gobbles up the pig before strolling on.
The second of the three little pigs, meanwhile, has met a man with a bundle of sticks, and has had the same idea as his (erstwhile) brother. The man gives him the sticks and he makes a house out of them. The wolf is walking by, smells the pig inside his house made of sticks, and he knocks at the door (can you ‘knock’ at a door made of sticks?), and says: ‘Little pig! Little pig! Let me in! Let me in!’
The pig can see the wolf’s ears through the keyhole (how can there – oh, forget it), so he responds: ‘No! No! No! By the hair on my chinny chin chin!’
The wolf bares his teeth and says: ‘Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.
’
He does as he’s threatened to do, blows the house down, and gobbles up the pig before strolling on.
Now, the final of the three little pigs – and the last surviving one – had met a man with a pile of bricks, and had had the same idea as his former siblings, and the man had kindly given him the bricks to fashion a house from. Now, you can guess where this is going.
The wolf is passing, and sees the brick house, and smells the pig inside it. He knocks at the door (no problem here), and says: ‘Little pig! Little pig! Let me in! Let me in!’
The pig can see the wolf’s great big eyes through the keyhole, so he responds: ‘No! No! No! By the hair on my chinny chin chin!’
The wolf bares his teeth and says: ‘Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.’
So the wolf huffs and puffs and huffs and puffs and huffs and puffs and keeps huffing and puffing till he’s out of puff. And he hasn’t managed to blow the pig’s house down! He thinks for a moment, and then tells the little pig that he knows a field where there are some nice turnips for the taking.
He tells the pig where the field is and says he will come round at six o’clock the next morning and take him there.
But the little pig is too shrewd, so the next morning he rises at five o’clock, goes to the field, digs up some turnips and takes them back to his brick house. By the time the wolf knocks for him at six, he is already munching on the turnips. He tells the wolf he has already been and got them. The wolf is annoyed, but he comes up with another plan, and tells the wolf that he knows of some juicy apples on a tree in a nearby garden, and says he will knock for the pig the next morning at five o’clock and personally show him where they are.
The little pig agrees, but rises the next morning before four o’clock, and goes to the garden to pick some apples. But the wolf has been fooled once and isn’t about to be fooled twice, so he heads to the apple tree before five and catches the pig up the tree with a basket of apples. The pig manages to escape by throwing the wolf an apple to eat, but throwing it so far away that by the time the wolf has fetched it and returned, the little pig has escaped with his basket and gone home to his brick house.
The wolf tries one final time. He invites the little pig to the fair with him the next day, and the pig agrees; but he heads to the fair early on, buys a butter churn, and is returning home when he sees the big bad wolf on the warpath, incandescent with rage at having been thwarted a third time. So the pig hides in the butter churn and ends up rolling down the hill towards the wolf. The pig squeals in fear as he rolls, and the sound of the squealing and the speed of the churn rolling towards him terrifies the wolf, and he tucks tail and runs away.
The next day, the wolf shows up at the little pig’s house, to apologise for not accompanying him to the fair the day before. He tells the pig that a loud, scary thing was rolling down a hill towards him. When the pig tells him that it must have been him inside the butter churn, the wolf loses his patience, and climbs on the roof, determined to climb down the chimney into the little pig’s house and eat him. But the pig has a pot of water boiling under the chimney, and when the wolf drops down into the house, he plops straight into the boiling hot water.
The little pig puts the lid on the pot and cooks the wolf and then eats him for supper!
The Three Little Pigs: analysis
We all know these essential features of the story: the three little pigs, the big bad wolf. Yet neither of these is an essential feature of the story, or hasn’t been at some point or other in the fable’s history. In one version – the earliest published version, from English Forests and Forest Trees, Historical, Legendary, and Descriptive (1853) – the little pigs were actually little pixies, and the wolf was a fox; the three houses were made of wood, stone, and iron. In another version, the Big Bad Wolf was actually a Big Kind Wolf. In at least one telling, the middle pig builds his house out of furze (i.e. gorse, a kind of shrub) rather than sticks.
As the Writing in Margins blog observes, an 1877 article published in Lippincott’s detailing folklore of African Americans in the southern United States outlines a story involving seven little pigs, which contains many of the details we associate with the Three Little Pigs tale, including the chimney-fire-pot finale and the chinny-chin-chinning.
Joel Chandler Harris’ 1883 collection Nights with Uncle Remus contains a similar tale (featuring six pigs rather than three), suggesting that the tale was part of African-American folklore in the nineteenth century. Was the tale related to race relations in the United States during the antebellum (and immediate postbellum) era?
Perhaps, although it’s worth noting there were also Italian versions of the tale in circulation around the same time (with three geese rather than three pigs). The definitive English version – with all of the features of the story outlined in the plot summary above – appears to have made its debut in print only in 1886, in James Orchard Halliwell’s Nursery Rhymes of England.
This was a sort of hybrid version of the various tellings of the story in circulation, incorporating aspects of the Italian, African-American, and English versions. We recommend the Writing in Margins post linked to above for more information on the evolution of the story.
Among other fascinating insights, the author suggests that the ‘pixies’ version of the tale arose from a mishearing of the Devon dialect word for pig, ‘pigsie’, as ‘pixie’. Certainly, no other version of the Three Little Pigs contains pixies, and the pixies in the story behave unlike the pixies found in other stories from English folklore.
1886 is rather late for the tale (as we now know it) to be making its debut in print. It feels much older, especially since it contains so many features we commonly associate with fairy tales and children’s stories. Indeed, it’s thought that the story is considerably older, and was perhaps circulated orally before it finally made its way into published books. Certainly, despite these slight differences between disparate versions of the tale, the raw narrative elements are those we are used to finding in fairy tales.
The rule of three – a common plot feature in classic fairy tales – is there several times over in the fable of the Three Little Pigs.
There are three little pigs; there are three houses; the wolf tries to trick the last of the three pigs three times. In each case, the third instance acts as the decisive one: the first two pigs are eaten, but the third survives; the first two houses are insufficient to withstand the wolf, but the third is able to; and the third trick played by the wolf proves his ultimate undoing, since it is the last straw (no pun intended) which makes him erupt in rage and go on the offensive, with devastating consequences (for him).
This helps to build a sense of narrative tension, even if we suspect we know where the tale is going. And of course, there is a delicious irony (delicious in more than one sense) in the pig eating the wolf at the end of the fable, rather than vice versa.
But if fables are meant to have a moral message to impart, what is the meaning of the Three Little Pigs tale? In the last analysis, it seems to be that plucky resourcefulness and careful planning pay off, and help to protect us from harm.
There’s also a degree of self-sufficiency: the mother cannot look after the three little pigs, so they must stand on their own two (or four) feet and make their own way in the world. (This is another popular narrative device in fairy tales: the hero must absent themselves from home early on and go out into the world alone.)
Of course, the third little pig survives not just by standing on his own feet but by thinking on his feet, too: it’s his quick thinking that enables him to outwit the wolf, himself not exactly a simpleton, even if he isn’t the sharpest straw in the hay-bale.
The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.
Image: via Wikimedia Commons.
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Tags: Analysis, Animal Fables, Children's Literature, Fairy Tales Analysis, Origins, Summary, Three Little Pigs
The Three Little Pigs - Cycles of Change Rehab Center
Many of us are familiar with the English children’s fairy tale, The Three Little Pigs. There were three little siblings pigs that each built houses made of straw, wood, and bricks. Along came a big bad wolf that knocked successively on each home, telling the pigs to open up the door or he will blow their houses down. Naturally, the pigs don’t open the doors to their places. However, the wolf blows down the house made of straw, and then the house is made of wood. Luckily, the residing pigs managed to find refuge in the third house, which was made of brick and belonged to their brother. The wolf made his way over to the house made of brick, knowing that there were three little pigs inside, and he demanded that they open the door. The third little pig refused (while his brothers cowered in terror), and the wolf said, “Then I will huff and puff and blow your house down!” Well, it’s hard to blow down a house made of bricks, and in the end, the wolf decides to get into the house by crawling down the chimney, unaware that the third little pig has outsmarted him.
The horrible wolf falls into a pot of boiling water, and the pigs eat him for dinner instead of the other way around.
Due to laziness, the first two little pigs did not build substantial houses. The third little pig worked very hard and made sure that he built a place that had a solid foundation. If we compare the story of The Three Little Pigs to Gresham’s Law and Alcoholics Anonymous, we can see an analogy between the different materials and methods that the pigs used to build their houses and various ways of working a 12-step program. And we can deduce that the wolf is a metaphor for drug addiction and alcoholism.
The three ways of working the 12-step program include a feeble way, which really amounts to not working the program at all. This could involve a person who goes to meetings but doesn’t work their steps or a person who hits a few sessions a month and manages to stay clean and sober, but according to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, suffers from being “restless, irritable and discontented.
” This is a dry drunk syndrome, and it’s a miserable way of life. A recovering alcoholic/addict who weakly works the program is like the little pig that built a house of straw! In the end, the wolf or addiction was able to blow the house down. People who ineffectively work the program are prone to relapse.
Then there are the people who work the program in a medium manner. Perhaps they go to regular meetings and have performed their steps. But other disorders might have popped up, including sexual addiction, gambling, or kleptomania. They are oblivious to these defects and still manage to stay clean and sober and consider themselves honorable members of the 12-step fellowship. Often these are the people who try to pick up newcomers at meetings or who try to use the program for their own devious motives. These people are comparable to the little pig that built a house of wood. And yes, the wolf managed to blow that house down, too!
And finally, the people who work a strong program are very similar to the little pig that toiled away and built a house made of bricks.
This little pig provided refuge for his brothers and maintained serenity even when the wolf was at his door. In the end, the third little pig overcame the wolf. If we compare a person who works a strong 12-step program to that third little pig, we can ascertain that person will probably maintain their recovery while being happy and clear-headed, even when there is danger lurking around the corner.
At Cycles of Change, we offer a comprehensive 12-step approach, along with an evidence-based protocol that will help you build a strong foundation in recovery. We will teach you how to work a 12-step program the healthy way and help you learn tools that will help you find serenity, clarity, as well as lifelong sobriety.
Detailed content of the play "The Three Little Pigs and the Gray Wolf" • Theater "Modern"
The play-tale about the three little pigs tells about the adventures of two brothers Nuf-Nuf, Nif-Nif and their little pig sister named Naf-Naf.
All summer long the three merry little pigs spent their time carefree: basking in the sun, somersaulting in the green grass and splashing in warm puddles.
Autumn came and it got colder. Naf-Naf suggested that everyone build a house together for the winter, but Nif-Nif and Nuf-Nuf decided not to rush to build a house. The brothers decided that they would live separately, each in their own house, but for now, they preferred to enjoy the last warm autumn days, play and jump in the meadow. Naf-Naf did not wait for her careless brothers and started building her house. She kneaded clay, dragged stones and slowly built herself a solid, reliable house in which she could hide from rain, wind, frost and other troubles. The brothers were surprised at such an impressive building and began to ask Naf-Naf why she needed such a solid stone house. “To protect yourself from the wolf,” said Naf-Naf. Nif-Nif and Nuf-Nuf laughed at their sister, “there is no wolf here,” said the piglets.
The brothers decided not to spend much time building houses. Nif-Nif built a house of straw in one day, Nuf-Nuf built a house of dry leaves and twigs in two. When the work was done, the piglets continued to play tricks on their sister, they imagined how easily they would deal with the wolf, although they had never seen him.
Loud laughter and songs of cheerful piglets were heard by an angry and hungry Gray Wolf passing by. The piglets were terribly frightened and, squealing throughout the forest, rushed to their houses. Nif-Nif was the first to reach his thatched dwelling. “Come on, open the door, otherwise I’ll blow it and your house will fly apart!” The wolf shouted and blew with all his might on the house of Nif-Nif. The house scattered in all directions, as if after a hurricane.
Frightened Nif-Nif rushed to run and in a minute was already in Nuf-Nuf's house. The cunning wolf decided to pretend to be a sheep by putting on a sheep's skin. He knocked on the door and in a thin voice asked for a lodging for the night. The piglets opened the door ajar, but when they saw the sharp teeth of the wolf, they got scared and managed to close it back. “Come on, open the door, otherwise I’ll blow it and your house will fly apart!” shouted the Gray Wolf, blew with all his might on Nuf-Nuf’s house and it scattered in all directions.
The piglets ran away in horror and managed to get to the Naf-Naf house. The little sister let them into the house and quickly closed the massive oak door with a bolt. She had nothing to fear in her stone house.
No matter how hard the Gray Wolf tried, he could not get inside, neither through the windows nor through the door. He decided that he would guard the house. “Sooner or later, the pigs will come out, then I’ll eat them,” the wolf thought and began to wait.
The night passed, but the gray did not go away. Morning came and Naf-Naf came up with a cunning plan to get rid of the wolf, she dressed up in a fox costume and invited the wolf to dance. Naf-Naf's outfit was so good that the wolf did not notice the change. In the meantime, the piglet brothers sneaked out of the house unnoticed and smeared glue on a pole next to a growing tree. Naf-Naf, in the form of a fox, skillfully performed her role. She twirled the wolf in a dance and, passing by a tree, leaned it against the glued trunk.
No matter how hard the wolf tried to unstick from the tree, nothing worked for him. He realized that he was wrong and asked for forgiveness from the three little pigs. The piglets were very kind and therefore, of course, they forgave, released and released the Gray Wolf. Since then, the wolf and the three little pigs have become friends.
From now on, the piglets, two brothers and a sister, began to live together under one roof, in their cozy stone house.
The Three Little Pigs -2020. From what to build a reliable house?
Everyone knows the story of the Three Little Pigs. Two of the three brothers approached the issue of housing construction not responsibly enough, as a result of which they had to escape from the wolf under the roof of the house of the most intelligent of the brothers - Naf-Naf. Now, of course, no one would come up with the idea of building a house from straw or wooden sticks, but the plot with the choice of materials for the walls does not lose its relevance.
Brick, timber, frame, aerated concrete? The wolf will not eat the owner with any choice, but other equally unpleasant problems with the operation of the finished house may arise. Imagine that the plot of the fairy tale was moved to 2020 and we will help the brothers make their choice.
Nif-Nif and a frame house
The advantages of a frame house are in the low cost of materials and installation, light weight, which allows the house to be installed on piles or strip foundations, as well as in relative accessibility and high installation speed. Such a house can be assembled with your own hands.
The sequence of work is simple - a wooden frame and sheathing are erected on the foundation, the walls can be filled with mineral wool, foam plastic or other materials. In order for such a house not to rot, not burn and not be eaten by insects, the walls are impregnated with special solutions. You can build a small frame house in a season; under a nice sheathing, there will be no visual difference with a house made of more solid materials.
But it is there, even if it is not visible to the eye.
The frame house is short-lived - the service life of such a house is not more than 25 years. After this period, the wooden base begins to rot and be undermined by insects and rodents. It ignites more easily during force majeure, it has much worse sound insulation compared to other wall materials, and the impregnation of the walls, and the materials themselves, are far from environmentally friendly.
It is also important to find a developer who will assemble the frame house correctly. If, like Nif-Nif, he has hooves instead of hands, then even a new house may have problems with thermal insulation. A frame house is rarely year-round without significant heating costs during the cold season. Well, sooner or later, you will most likely find an animal worse than a wolf under the skin - a mouse.
Nuf-Nuf and a log house
Timber houses really look like from a fairy tale. The color of the tree, its smell - lovers of eco-friendly housing will be delighted.
Wood is lighter than brick or aerated concrete, so a not very deep foundation or piles are suitable for timber houses. Lumber of poor quality and drying requires a long shrinkage - from one year, but most modern houses made of timber are built from profiled ordinary or glued timber of good drying. Such materials allow you to equip the interior decoration of the house after the construction of the house under the roof, and the new generation beam itself minimizes the cost of sealing cracks due to its shape and grooves, and allows you not to spend much on interior decoration - the tree itself is beautiful.
However, such a tower also has disadvantages. Firstly, high-quality timber is not cheap, and with a complex house design, its price can be comparable to a house from the same gas blocks. Secondly, the tree requires care. Termites and fungus do not sleep. To protect the tree, impregnation treatment will be required, regularity - at least once every 5 years, depending on the climatic conditions of the region of construction.
Thirdly, fire hazard - everything is clear with this and without jokes, without a competent electrician it is impossible to cope here. Well, the last and one of the most important disadvantages of a house made of timber, which few people think about when looking at beautiful interiors in the popular style - the thermal insulation properties of wood with a standard timber width of 200 mm are two times worse than brick walls. Without additional finishing in a real Russian winter, it will be cold in the house, which means that the house will need to be insulated from the outside or from the inside. Thus, the charm of a completely wooden eco-friendly house as its advantage pales a little.
Naf-Naf and the brick house
Brick is the strongest and most durable material for building the walls of a house. Porous ceramic brick has high heat and noise insulation properties, does not absorb moisture and does not burn. A brick house looks aesthetically pleasing and, with the right construction technology, will stand unchanged for decades. However, there are nuances that the fairy tale with a happy ending about piglets kept silent about.
Naf-Naf, unlike his brothers, would hardly have erected a house in one summer or even in one year. Brick is heavy and needs a solid foundation. That is, in reality, at such a pace of construction, the wolf from the fairy tale would have managed to eat everyone. But fortunately, we live in the real world and we have time.
Important: the construction of a brick house must be carried out in compliance with all technologies, otherwise the house may crack after shrinkage. A brick house at first glance seems to be more expensive than alternative options, but if you study the issue in more detail, it will turn out completely different. Maintenance of a brick house does not require special care, unlike others: frame or wooden houses, for the maintenance of which it is necessary to constantly allocate funds and time.
But still, if your goal is a reliable year-round home that will serve you for decades - brick is your choice.
Happy ending
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