"The Three Little Pigs" was included in The Nursery Rhymes of England (London and New York, c.1886), by James Halliwell-Phillipps. The story in its arguably best-known form appeared in English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, first published on June 19, 1890, and crediting Halliwell as his source. The earliest published version of the story is from Dartmoor in 1853 and has three little pixies in place of the pigs.
The story begins with the title characters being sent out into the world by their mother, to "seek out their fortune".
The third little pig builds a house of bricks, which the wolf fails to blow down. He then attempts to trick the pig out of the house by asking to meet him at several places, but he is outwitted each time. Finally, the wolf resolves to come down the chimney, whereupon the pig who owns the brick house lights a pot of water on the fireplace. After the wolf goes down the chimney he either dies like in the original, runs away and never returns to eat the three little pigs or in some versions the wolf faints after trying to blow down the brick house and all three of the pigs survive in either case.
