English Fairy Tales

Kind sir, if the truth I must tell,

At the sign of Basin of Water I dwell.

Little pig, little pig, let me come in.

To which the pig answered: Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.

The wolf answered to that, Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow the house down.

Turn again Whittington,

Thrice Mayor of London

When the pig saw what he [the wolf] was about, he hung on a pot full of water, and made a blazing fire...and in fell the wolf...

There once was upon a time a poor widow who had an only son Jack, and a cow called Milky-White.

The sky is a-going to fall, I must go and tell the King.

But the Harp called out quite loud: Master! Master!

You don't know what these beans are, said the man [that Jack meets]. If you plant them overnight, by morning they grew right up to the sky.

Woe worth you, Molly Whuppie! never you come again

Twice yet, carle, quoth she, I'll come to Spain.

Fee-fi-fo-fum,

I smell the blood of an Englishman,

Be he alive or be he dead

I'll have his bones to grind my bread.

My man is an ogre and there is nothing he likes better than boys broiled on toast.

Well, he [the wolf] huffed, and he puffed, and he puffed, and he puffed and he puffed and huffed; but he could not get the house down.

Fee, fi, fo, fum

I smell the blood of some earthly one.

Out the Old Woman jumped (of the window). And whether she broke her neck in the fall; or ran into the wood and was lost there...or taken up by a constable to the House of Correction for the vagrant she was I cannot tell. But the Three Bears never saw anything more of her.

Who says that English folk have no fairy-tales of their own?