Reading Diary A: English Fairy Tales

English Fairy Tales

Tom Tit Tot: This story is almost exactly like Rumplestiltskin. In this story, a woman is married off to the king because he thinks she can spin five skeins in a day. For eleven months, she gets whatever she wants, but in the last month, she will be locked in a room and have to spin five skeins a day or she will be killed. A black impish person comes to her window and offers a her a deal saying that he will spin her skeins everyday and she will have three attempts to guess his name every night. If she doesn't guess his name by the end of the month, she will be his. On the last day, the king visits her in the room and tells her about a funny black imp singing a silly song with his name. The woman is thrilled and tells the imp his name and the imp runs off.

The Old Woman and the Pig: A woman found some money and went to buy a pig. The pig wouldn't climb over the stile, so the woman couldn't get home. She found a dog who refused to bite the pig to get it to jump over. She found a stick who refused to beat the dog and a fire who refused to burn the stick. Water refused to extinguish the fire and a cow refused to drink the water. A butcher refused to kill the cow and a rope refused to hang the butcher. A rat refused to gnaw the rope but a cat bargained that if the woman brought it a saucer of milk, it would kill the rat. The woman went to the cow and it asked for hay. The woman grabbed the hay and gave it to the cow. The cat was given the milk and it tried killing the rat and the cycle went down and the pig jumped over the fence and the woman was able to go home.

(The Woman and the Pig, Source:UnTextbook)

The Three Little Pigs: There were three little pigs who made their houses with different supplies. The first pig built his house with straw and the wolf blew his house down and ate the pig. The second little pig built his house with a bundle of furze and the wolf blew down his house and ate the pig also. The third little pig built his house with bricks but the wold couldn't blow that house down, so he tried tricking the third little pig. The pig didn't fall for any of the wolf's tricks so the wolf tried coming in through the pig's chimney. The pig saw what the wolf was doing and set a pot of water and a fire in the fireplace and boiled the wolf. The pig ate him for supper and lived happily ever after.