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Reading Notes: English Fairy Tales, Part A

 The Old Woman and Her Pig

When I read this story, it seemed as if this was written to be more of a riddle than a story. The way the story flowed and the sentences were structured was a bit unusual compared to most stories. However, I really enjoyed reading it because it seemed like something I might have heard in my childhood. 

The story began with introducing an old woman. She lived in a little house and she noticed one day that it was dirty and needed to be swept. So, she decided to clean the house and while she was sweeping, she came across a crooked sixpence. After discovering the pen, she decided she wanted to use it, however, she had no animals to put in the pen. To solve this dilemma, she went into town and bought a piglet. On her way back from the market with her piglet, the piglet was hesitant and would not go over a stile on the ground. So, in order to fix the problem she goes and finds a dog and asks the dog to bite at the pig so the pig would go over the stile. After the dog refuses, she goes on to ask a stick to beat the dog so then the dog can bite the pig and the pig will move. Starting to see the trend? So, eventually after she asks several animals/items to help her, and none of them do, she stumbles upon a cat that is willing to. However, the cat requests that the old woman fetch her milk first. And to get milk from the cow the cow request some hay. So she fetches the hay, and then the milk, and finally cat starts the chain reaction that ends in the piglet jumping over the stile. This was a fun story, but it begs the question why the woman couldn’t have pushed the pig over the stile herself, or just picked it up if it was a little pig. 



Bibliography

Jacobs, Joseph. The Old Woman and Her Pig. English Fairy Tales. 1890. Link.

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