Where does the three little pigs take place

A Summary and Analysis of the ‘Three Little Pigs’ Fairy Tale – Interesting Literature

By 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

"The Three Little Pigs" is a fairy tale that children become familiar with at an early age. It is a fable because it has a moral message and involves animals. The story conveys warnings about laziness and advocates building strong shelters and not settling for cheap materials. There are multiple versions of the story involving three pigs being hunted by a wolf.

The story was first seen in English fairy tale books from the 19th century. It is on our list of classic children's short stories.

In the familiar tale three little pigs are sent off into the world by their mother. Each pig builds a house. One builds a house of straw, one builds a house of sticks and one builds a far more sturdy house made of brick.

When a wolf comes after the picks he asks each pig to let him inside. The pigs refuse saying, "not by the hair on my chinny chin chin." The wolf then threatens, "Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house down." The wolf easily blows down the homes made of straw and sticks, but is unable to blow down the stronger and better made brick house. The first two pigs are eaten in the earliest versions of the tale. Only the third brick-laying pig survives. The first two pigs do not always die in some of the more recent versions of the tale. In some versions the pigs even end up eating the wolf.

There are multiple morals in this story. It illustrates the importance of hard work. It is worth the time and effort to build something good. The straw using pig says in the story that he will use the straw so he can do less work and have more time to relax. The pig was lazy and made a fatal error in judgement.

It also directly illustrates the importance of building a sturdy structure. The wolf could just as easily be a tornado or wind storm with the homes representing the types of homes people could build. A weak house would not be able to withstand some of the powerful storms England has received over the past couple centuries. A straw or stick house would be no match for a tornado.

Origins

"The Three Little Pigs" story was first published in The Nursery Rhymes of England by James Halliwell-Phillips in 1886 according to the Wikipedia entry. It was then published in English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs in 1890. The tale likely predates these books and as with many fairy tales the original author is unknown.

Later Versions

Summary Mikhalkov Three little pigs for the reader's diary, read a brief retelling online

There once lived three brothers of a little pig. They were similar to each other, one was called Nif-Nif, the second Naf-Naf, and the third Nuf-Nuf. In summer, the piglets rested, enjoyed the warm weather, frolicked and basked in the sun. But soon the first cold came, and with them autumn.

Naf-Naf was the first to think about the arrival of cold weather, he woke up early in the morning and suggested that the brothers build a house for the winter. Both brothers did not want to take part in the construction and help, as they believed that winter was still far away and therefore they would have time to build a shelter at any moment.

Naf-Naf went to build a house while the brothers continued to rest. They said that from tomorrow they would start building houses for themselves, but this did not happen. The games of the two piglets continued until the puddles were covered with a thin layer of ice. Nif-Nif made a house out of straw, he believed that it would serve as an excellent material. As a result, he built the house in one day.

Nuf-Nuf also set to work, but without much enthusiasm, at first he also wanted to build from straw, but he decided that it did not retain heat enough. Therefore, this piglet took branches and thin rods for himself. When the houses of Nuf-Nuf and Nif-Nif were ready, they decided to visit the third brother and see what he had built.

Naf-Naf, unlike his brothers, did not build in one day, he kneaded clay and wanted to build a reliable and strong house for himself. The brothers did not understand why Naf-Naf was building such a house for himself, they say, why build a whole fortress. Naf-Naf said that he was afraid of the wolf, and the brothers only laughed in response, because they believed that wolves were not found here.

On the way home, Nuf-Nuf and Nif-Nif met a wolf, he was very scary and big. Nif-Nif was the first to run into his straw house, the wolf asked to open the door for him, but the pig did not open it. Then the wolf simply blew and demolished the roof first, and then the whole piglet's house. Nif-Nif ran with all his might to Nuf-Nuf. The wolf went to the trick and crept up to the house of Nuf-Nuf in sheep's clothing and pretended to be a poor sheep. The piglets, not suspecting anything, decided to let the sheep go, but they saw a wolf outside the door. He started blowing on the house again, but this time it took more effort. As a result, the house collapsed.

Pigs were saved only in the house near Naf-Naf, as it was strong, since then the brothers lived together.

The author of this fairy tale teaches us not to be lazy, to approach things wisely, not to procrastinate, and also to help our loved ones.

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Read summary Three little pigs. Brief summary. For a reader's diary, take 5-6 sentences

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Mikhail Elizarov: Three little pigs - Mikhail Elizarov - Speakers - Favorites - Snob

It is believed that the story of the three little pigs and the wolf goes back to English folklore. The fairy tale came to the Soviet reader in a wonderful processing by Sergei Mikhalkov with the same note: "according to an English fairy tale." Unlike the English book original, where the piglets differed in color, Mikhalkov's piglets acquired names - Nif-Nif, Nuf-Nuf and Naf-Naf - and got rid of excessive bloodthirstiness. (At the end of the curtain English piglets boiled the wolf alive in a cauldron and ate it for dinner. At the soft-hearted Mikhalkov, the scalded wolf jumped back into the chimney, from there to the roof and ran into the forest.)

In general, the Russian version did not differ from the English one. Three pig brothers lived. The eldest and most intelligent pig Naf-Naf suggested that the brothers start building a strong and reliable house. Nif-Nif and Nuf-Nuf take the matter lightly. They do not want to help their brother, they lead a carefree life and at the very last moment they build flimsy, useless houses for themselves: Nif-Nif - from straw, Nuf-Nuf - from twigs. Above Naf-Naf, who is building a house of stone and with a solid oak door, they laugh: "What are you building? - the surprised Nif-Nif and Nuf-Nuf shouted in one voice. - What is this, a house for a piglet or a fortress?" "The pig's house must be a fortress!" Naf-Naf calmly answered them.

A wise piglet builds not a house, but a fortress: “Of course, I am smarter than everyone else, I build a house of stones.” Naf-Naf is not just a builder pig, he is primarily a bricklayer .

In world history, the term "mason" is firmly associated with the movement of Freemasonry - a powerful branched organization that inherited the experience of the secret societies of the Middle Ages (masson, freemason - a freemason). Formally, for public opinion, the Freemasons declared a certain humanistic loyalty to the ideas of the moral improvement of society within the framework of the religion and state where this or that Masonic lodge is located.

The organization was distinguished by cosmopolitanism, in which English, French or Russian Masons were primarily obliged to defend the interests of the movement, and not of their homeland. Accordingly, the Freemasons were religiously omnivorous (faith in a higher principle, the Great Architect, was quite enough).

In fact, Freemasonry at all times was engaged in the formation of an elite fifth column within each state. Freemasons penetrated state structures: the bureaucracy, the army. Engaged in clan patronage, they successfully promoted the "brothers" through the ranks, provided them with all kinds of support - financial, political, for which they demanded the same return, and in this they were not much different from any sect with its rigid hierarchy and discipline. There was a complex system of initiation within the very structure of Freemasonry, a table of ranks, consisting of many degrees. All this increasingly complex system of secrecy made it possible to keep the plans of the Masonic elite secret.

The symbolism of Freemasonry - a trowel, a plumb line and a compass - goes back to the heraldry of the masons' guilds that existed in the 13th century. The appearance of these guilds was the result of the activities of the Knights Templar, which launched large-scale construction during its heyday. Over a relatively short historical period - about a hundred years - more than 80 cathedrals were built at the expense of the order.

Freemasonry first makes itself known in the 17th century in England. In London, in 1717, the first Grand Lodge is founded, which is considered the mother lodge for all Freemasonry. But, according to some versions, the first four Masonic lodges were founded by Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. It is believed that in 1307 the Grand Master, already arrested, initiated the creation of lodges in custody - the genealogical connection of the Freemasons with the Templars is obvious.

Founded around 1119, the Knights Templar declared its task to be the protection of Christian pilgrims. But besides this, the order had another secret mystical task - the restoration of the Temple of Solomon (the very name "Templars" comes from temple - temple). The knights-templars chose the masons of Zerubbabel as a biblical model - a kind of union of a sword and a trowel. The Templars have been a "brotherhood of stonemasons" since their founding.

"Of course, I'm smarter than everyone else, I build my house out of stones." "Bricklayer" Naf-Naf builds not only a fortress, but also a temple, that is, a temple (by the way, Dom in German means a cathedral or a temple).

"No animal in the world, a cunning animal, a terrible animal, will break through this door!" “What animal is he talking about?” - Ask Nif-Nif and Nuf-Nuf. “I'm talking about the wolf,” Naf-Naf replies.

In medieval Christian symbolism, the "wolf" is the destroyer of the flock. The symbolic "wolf" was distinguished by ferocity, cunning and greed. The state machine of France became such a fatal "wolf-destroyer" for the Templars. Philip the Handsome, with the support of Pope Clement V, carried out a swift punitive operation to "dispossess" the order. In an effort to give legitimacy to this arbitrariness, Philip organized show trials of the Templars. Arrests were made in the name of the Inquisition. The Templars were charged with renouncing Jesus Christ, worshiping the idol of Baphomet (probably transformed by torture "Mohammed", since Baphomet's demonology did not know), homosexual orgies and other spiritual and carnal sins.

Grand Master Jacques de Molay died at the stake. The order was dissolved, the possessions of the Templars became the property of the king. Part of the property went to the Order of the Hospitallers. The German templars formed the Teutonic Order, the Portuguese - the Order of the Knights of Christ. The Templars were given asylum at the state level by England and Scotland. So the "masons" ended up on Albion.

So, the “wolf” is a state repressive machine that operates according to special rules, that is, according to the law. It is no accident that the wolf in the fairy tale blows on the houses of Nif-Nif, Nuf-Nuf and Naf-Naf. The wolf is bound by rules. He, for example, cannot set fire to the house or simply break it down. (In itself, “exhalation” is associated with a speech or a sentence, the destructiveness of which is based on “hurricane” slander. The same Templars were slandered by the Inquisition.) The straw and twig “temples” of the pigs turned out to be weak before the “law”, therefore they fell.

By the way, the image of the “pig” itself is not so comical. Suffice it to recall that the forest pig is the future “boar”, which, as a heraldic symbol in the Middle Ages, denoted a courageous warrior who staunchly resists the enemy and is not inclined to retreat. The features of the "boar" are ferocity and courage. Suffice it to recall that the white boar's head was the breast emblem of Richard III.

Nif-Nif and Nuf-Nuf flee from their devastated "temple" under the protection of the stone walls of Freemasonry - to Naf-Naf.

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