General Information about Item:
- Fable, Childhood story, Fiction
- Language:Serbian, translated into English
- Country of Origin: Serbia
- Informant: Katarina Nesic
- Date Collected: 11-12-19
Informant Data:
- Katarina Nesic is a 22 year old, Dartmouth student who was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia. She attended high school in Switzerland and speaks Serbian, English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian. At Dartmouth, Katarina studies Government and Russian, and is a member of Kappa Delta sorority.
Contextual Data:
- This story is typically told by parents to their children as a bedtime story.
Item:
“This is the Story of the Three Little Pigs. Once upon a time, on this forest far away from the city, on this little hill there were three little pigs (and they were brothers). The three little pigs decided that they would each build a house for themselves. The oldest and the wisest brother made a decision to make a house out of brick. The younger two brothers made the decision to make their houses out of hay and wood. The youngest one making his out of hay and the middle brother making his out of wood. At some point a big scary wolf comes to the hill. And he notices the youngest brothers house made out of hay. He knocks on the door and says “I can blow your house away” (basically). And he does so. The youngest brother loses his home and then runs to the home of the middle brother, the one that’s made out of wood. The wolf chases him, gets to the door and says the same thing: “I can blow your house away” and he does so. So the two little pigs get scared and run off to the oldest brothers house that’s made of brick and the wolf chases them. He arrives at the oldest brother’s house and says that he can blow the house away but when he tries he realizes that it’s too firm to be blown away like the other ones. So he decides to get into the house through the chimney. But the oldest brother realizes this and he starts a fire so the smoke was coming out of the chimney. The wolf got scared and basically ran away. And the three little piggys lived happily ever after.”
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
Informant’s Comments:
- The informant said that she remembers this story because her mother told it to her as a bedtime story often and they are very close. In the Serbian recording of the tale, she repeated the phrase “Kad ja dunem i vatru sunem, srusicu ti kucu” which means “I’m going to blow your house away.” According to the informant this phrase is an identifying factor of the story, and is used whenever it is recounted.
Collector’s Comments:
- This story is similar to the American version of “The Three Little Pigs.” The difference that I noticed is in the language. In the American version a common recounting involves the wolf saying “I’ll huff and I’ll puff until I blow your house down.” I believe this fable was told to her as stories with talking animals tend to be more entertaining for children and thus memorable.
Collector’s Name: Morgan Gelber
Tags/Keywords: fable, Pigs, Serbian, folklore