- published: 27 Aug 2014
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The Three Little Pigs is a fable/fairy tale featuring anthropomorphic pigs who build three houses of different materials. A big bad wolf blows down the first two pigs' houses, made of straw and sticks respectively, but is unable to destroy the third pig's house, made of bricks. Printed versions date back to the 1840s, but the story itself is thought to be much older. The phrases used in the story, and the various morals drawn from it, have become embedded in Western culture.
It is a type 124 folktale in the Aarne–Thompson classification system.
The Three Little Pigs was included in The Nursery Rhymes of England (London and New York, c.1886), by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps. The story in its arguably best-known form appeared in English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, first published in 1890 and crediting Halliwell as his source. The story begins with the title characters being sent out into the world by their mother, to "seek out their fortune". The first little pig builds a house of straw, but a wolf blows it down and eats him. The second pig builds a house of furze sticks, which the wolf also blows down and eats him. Each exchange between wolf and pig features ringing proverbial phrases, namely:
"In the beginning there was wolf, and then there was pig.
Wolf was the natural enemy of pig. (and this was good)
And so our story begins."
Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!
Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin!
Then I'll huff, and I'll puff,
and I'll blow your house in!
I am the big bad wolf and there will be no badder,
All the pigs is doing, is makin me madder.
Some A1 steak sauce, and some Saucy Susan,
will make them know the reason. They're losing their lives.
Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!
Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin!
Then I'll huff, and I'll puff,
and I'll blow your house in!
Huffin' and a puffin, puffin and a huffin,
keeps me thinkin about Stove Top stuffing.
I could wait for mumfths, and I could wait for years.
I could see myself chewing on those little pigs ears.