[151]
The following story is in the most familiar version of Halliwell's collection. Another much-used form of the story may be found in Lang's Green Fairy Book, in which the pigs are distinctly characterized and given the names of Browny, Whitey, and Blacky. Jacobs uses the Halliwell version in his English Fairy Tales, but prefixes to it an opening formula which seems to have been much in use by old story-tellers as a way of beginning almost any oral story for children:
"Once upon a time when pigs spoke rhyme
And monkeys chewed tobacco,
And hens took snuff to make them tough,
And ducks went quack, quack, quack, O!"
THE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS
Once upon a time there was an old sow with three little pigs, and as she had not enough to keep them, she sent them out to seek their fortune. The first that went off met a man with a bundle of straw, and said to him:
"Please, man, give me that straw to build me a house."
Which the man did, and the little pig built a house with it. Presently came along a wolf, and knocked at the door, and said:
"Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
To which the pig answered:
"No, no, by the hair of my chinny chin chin."