Hooks,
William H. The Three Little Pigs and the Fox. Illus.
S. D. Schindler. New York: Aladdin, 1989. N. pag. Based on several oral
versions from the Smoky Mountains, adding humorous details that
give each character lively individual personalities, especially Hamlet, the baby girl pig who outwits the "tricky old
drooly-mouth fox" and saves her brothers.
The Big Old Sow and the Three Little Pigs. Told to James Taylor Adams by Samuel Simpson Adams, 1940, who learned it from his mother seventy-five years earlier. JTA-94. Full text in AppLit. After their mother dies, the fox convinces the first two pigs to build their houses of sticks and leaves, which he can blow down. As in other old British and Appalachian versions, the fox kills the first two pigs (cuts them up in this tale). The third pig, who builds his house out of "iron an' steel" as his mammy advised, gets into a jam when the fox begs for parts of his body to be let into the house to get warm. Then the pig scares the fox into hiding in a chest by saying the king and his hounds are coming, and the pig pours scalding water on the fox. He turns the tables on the fox by singing, "I'll have fox an' peas fer supper." The Big Old Sow and the Little Pigs. Collected by Richard Chase, Damascus, VA, Dec. 3, 1941. JTA3058. This one is almost identical to the one collected by James Taylor Adams (above), except the three pigs are black, spotted, and white. The fox goes in and eats up the first two pigs. "The Old Sow and the Three Shoats." In Chase, Richard. Grandfather Tales. Boston: Houghton, 1948. pp. 81-87. With one full-page drawing of a pig with wolf at the door, by Berkeley Williams, Jr. The shoats decide it is time to seek their fortune and their mother asks them to visit on Sundays. She warns them to build of rock and bricks to keep the fox out, but the fox eats the Will and Tom, after convincing each of them to build of chips and cornstalks because it's easier. Jack, who does what his mammy told him, tricks the fox at his door to hide in a churn from the king, then pours scalding water in the churn. Granny in the frame story calls this one of the "Jack-'n-Will-'n-Tom tales." In his notes, Chase includes two more jokes from his source (R. M. Ward) about the third pig arguing with the fox's request to let his middlin' and then his butt in the house (p. 235). Other tales in this book are listed at Folktale Collections Indexed in AppLit. "The Three Piggies." In Smith, Jimmy Neil, ed. Why the Possum's Tail is Bare and Other Classic Southern Stories. New York: Avon, 1993. Reprinted from Leonard Roberts, Sang Branch Settlers: Folksongs and Tales of a Kentucky Mountain Family (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1974). The pigs' names are Tom, Will, and Jack. The fox "shickels and shackels" and eats Tom and Will when they build houses of stick and straw, and wood. In the end, Jack gets the fox into a chest in his brick house and pours in boiling water. "And that was the last of the fox. Jack burnt him up." "The Sow and Her Three Pigs." In Roberts, Leonard (collector). Nippy and the Yankee Doodle, and Other Authentic Folk Tales from the Southern Mountains. Berea, KY: The Council of the Southern Mountains, 1958. Also in Roberts' Old Greasybeard: Tales From the Cumberland Gap. Illus. Leonard Epstein. Detroit: Folklore Associates, 1969. Rpt. Pikeville, KY: Pikeville College Press, 1980. pp. 25-28. The pigs who make their own homes after their mother dies are Martha, Mary, and Nancy. When questioned by her mother, Nancy decides on her own to build her house of "steel and arn." The fox says, "fiddy, fiddy, faddy" to knock down Martha's and Mary's houses and eat them. When the fox asks to get in Nancy's door, she tricks him into getting locked into her "chist," where she pours hot water, "scalded him to death and had b'iled fox for supper." Other tales in these books are listed at Folktale Collections Indexed in AppLit. Ward, Marshall. "Three Little Pigs." In McCarthy, William Bernard, ed. Cinderella in America: A Book of Folk and Fairy Tales. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. pp. 341-46, with notes on Marshall's language and detailed retelling. From a recording, c 1970, in the Burton-Manning Collection at East Tennessee State University. In chapter 13 of this book on The Hicks-Harmon Beech Mountain Tradition, one of two chapters focusing on tales from the Southern mountains. The book demonstrates that American folktales, from Revolutionary times to the present, should not be viewed as watered-down versions of tales from older cultures. McCarthy refers to other Appalachian versions of this most popular children's tale in which the pigs are also named Tom, Will, and Jack, observing that is it common for the fox in the end to hide from the threat of dogs and to be killed with boiling water. He mentions a Scots version in which the pigs are Dennis, Biddy and Rex. Other tales in this book are listed at Folktale Collections Indexed in AppLit. The Pig Who Went Home on Sunday. Told by Donald Davis, Grandmas Lap Stories. Audio cassette. Little Rock, AR: August House Audio, 1995. Mama Pig sends the three pigs out on their own and tells them to come home to visit on Sunday. Only the third pig heeds her advice. Davis, Donald. The Pig Who Went Home on Sunday: An Appalachian Folktale. Illus. Jennifer Mazzucco. Little Rock, AR: August House, 2004. Picture book. "The Sow and her Three Pigs." In Sing Down the Moon: Appalachian Wonder Tales. Theater of the First Amendment. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 2000. Conceived by Mary Hall Surface (from KY) and David Maddox (from NC). Written by Mary Hall Surface. Lyrics by Mary Hall Surface and David Maddox. Music by David Maddox. Play with music based on Appalachian folktales, The pigs are all girls. Also includes "Jack of Hearts and King Marock," "Catskins," "Jack's First Job," "Jack and the Wonder Beans," and "The Enchanted Tree." Web pages include photos, authors' notes. Also produced as set of 2 CDs. Picture, summary of each tale and downloadable script excerpts at Dramatic Publishing Online Catalog. Moser, Barry. The Three Little Pigs. Boston: Little, Brown, 2001. A humorous retelling of the traditional tale with some contemporary popular culture images. The first two pigs are eaten quickly before an extended battle of wits between the third pig and wolf. The victorious pig wears wolf slippers, makes wolf stew with his mama's recipe, and uses a big book called Harley Rhode Hogg's Wolf Cook. Moser is a native of Appalachia from Tennessee. Although the setting in the book is hilly, not mountainous, several details allude to Southern culture, such as a "See Rock City" sign in one scene and a jar of Bubba's No Cook BBQ Sauce, labeled "Excellent on Pork."
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