My mother had a cartoon on our fridge of a salesman, briefcase in hand, snappy suit, arriving at a flash-looking brick building. The farmer is pointing to a ramshackle, wooden structure, saying, ‘No, this is the pig shed – that is the house.’
As a child, some of my friends had horses. We had pigs.
Pigs are associated with dirtiness and greed. Pig is literally a synonym for both dirtiness and greed.
But my mother always maintained that pigs were smarter than people give them credit for. Wikipedia agrees, saying they are as smart as dogs. Pigs can solve mazes and work with simple language symbols. Pigs have been trained to use a joystick with their snouts to select a target on a screen.
What do folklore and fairy tales have to say about these creatures? Clever or rightfully maligned?
Fable: Three Little Pigs: one industrious and clever little pig (this might account for my overdeveloped work ethic, who wants a wolf at their door?)
The repetition in the Three Little Pigs is irresistible:
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”
“No, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin.”
“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in”
Rewatching the 1933 Silly Symphony cartoon by Walt Disney, I realised how embedded its images are with my Three Little Pigs. The pigs singing “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf?” is an earworm.
The first versions of this story from Dartmoor, Devon, have 3 pixies and a fox in place of the pigs and wolf.
While printed versions date back to the 1840s, the best-known version appeared in Joseph Jacobs’ 1890 English Fairy Tales. It starts
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!
Here, the last little pig tricks the wolf several times, including rolling down a hill in a butter churn to frighten the wolf.
So, two lazy pigs and one with planning and foresight.
Fairy Tale: The Piggy Bridegrooms
- Italo Calvino noted, “the folktale about the swine king is one of the most widespread in Italy”
- Polish philologist Mark Lidzbarski noted that the pig prince usually appears in Romance language tales, while the hedgehog as the animal husband occurs in Germanic and Slavic tales.
The Pig King (Giovanni Franceso Straparola), a literary fairy tale, 1550
Thanks to some ‘superior’ fairies, a Queen gives birth to a pig. The King considered casting him into the sea, but, seized by pity and grief, decided the son should be nurtured like a rational being, not a brute beast. The Pig Prince wallowed in mud and smelled foul. Later, he demanded a wife who would prove disdainful, and he killed her. He married again and killed that one, too. When the Queen refused to find him a third wife, he threatened the Queen’s life in violent and bloodthirsty words. The third wife (and third daughter of the same woman who doesn’t seem to mind losing her daughters!) was content to have him defile her fine robes with his grime, and finally, he lets her in on his secret. At night, he sheds his skin and is a ‘handsome and well-shaped man’. Doesn’t she look pleased? See what a modest and amiable woman can achieve?
Year: 1894 (1890s)
Chinese Year of the Pig
My daughter is a Pig. She’s lovely, all the traits her birth year would predict: kind-hearted, loyal, honest, compassionate, generous, easy-going, calm, diligent, & responsible. She hasn’t wallowed in mud since she was a toddler.
One legend is that the Emperor organised a race to find out what order the animals should be in the zodiac, and the pig arrived late, got hungry during the race and stopped for a feast and then had a sleep. He finally finished the race, and the lazy pig is the 12th animal in the zodiac.
In Chinese culture, the pig is the symbol of wealth, prosperity and good luck. Who could be happier than a pig in mud?
The horses and cattle gave a party, and though the pigs were greedy, they decided to invite them, and perhaps it could be a peace party. They ask the pigs not to break down the fences and spoil the food and spoil the place. In return, the oxen and horses would no longer kill the piglets. The pigs replied that their master fed them, watered them, never made them work like the horses or oxen. The pigs are fat and well, while the horses and oxen are overworked and skinny. The horses and cows are perplexed. “We are stronger, wiser, and more useful than the pigs,” they said. “Why does the Master treat us so?”
The pigs leave, saying it will soon be feast day, “ And may the pig people live in the world as long and happily as the horses and the oxen…” and I am wondering what the master will be eating at the feast.
Weird pig facts (thank you to Wikipedia)
- Pigs (like elephants) wallow in mud because they don’t use thermal sweat glands for cooling.
- Pigs have a receptor that protects them from snake venom.
- Pigs were domesticated in the Near East at least 11,400 years ago.
- Pigs arrived in Europe 8000 years ago and interbred with the European wild boar.
- Feral pigs in New Zealand and northern Qld have caused substantial damage.
- The maximum lifespan of a pig is 27 years.
- Pigs build mounded nests of leaves and branches. Then she places large branches on the surface and tunnels in to give birth.
- Piglets from dominance hierarchies early and fight for the better anterior teats, and once established, the teat order remains stable.
- Pigs are social animals and like to hang out in groups of about 10 adult sows with some adult males.
- When allowed to roam, a pig will walk 4km a day. They like to sleep a lot.
- Pigs are good non-human candidates for organ donation to humans, and in 2021 became the first animal to successfully donate an organ to a human body.
Dirty, lazy, greedy AND clever. Who doesn’t love a pig in a fairy tale!