The Three Sillies

Story

Once upon a time, a farmer and his wife lived with their daughter. A young man begins courting the daughter and comes for dinner with the family every day. He decides that they are very silly and sets off into the world to see if he can find three people who are sillier than them. If he succeeds, he promises to come back and marry the girl…

Why we chose it

Stories about silliness are always fun to tell. This was one of the stories in our original audio stories collection. These stories are particularly suitable for learning to retell.

Where it came from

The story is included in Joseph’s Jacobs collection English Fairy Tales, published in 1890. He wanted to make sure that traditional English folk tales, that had been told and retold many times over the centuries, were recorded and remembered

Where it went next

The story has appeared in picture book form, including versions by Steven Kellogg (1981) and Tony Ross (2010)

Associated stories

Jacobs collected many of the fairy stories that are still hugely popular today, stories like Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Dick Whittington and his Cat and Tom Thumb.

Stories about silliness can be found in many traditional tales from all over the world, like The Three Wishes where unwise wishing leads to the fool’s wife having a sausage stuck to her nose.