Rule Of Three / Fairy Tales

The Rule of Three in fairy tales.

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• "Goldilocks and the Three Bears": The chairs are too hard, too soft, and just right, the porridges are too hot, too cold, just right, and so on.
• In "Three Billy Goats Gruff", the 3rd and largest goat defeats the troll.
• "Cinderella" traditionally goes to the ball three times before losing her shoe. Later, the two stepsisters each try the shoe on before Cinderella claims it.
• "The Three Little Pigs": the first two pigs' houses fail to ward off the Big Bad Wolf, while the 3rd's brick house remains sturdy.
• The story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf: the first two times, the boys just play with the villagers' emotions for fun that his sheep are under attack by a wolf. But after those two pranks, a wolf actually does show up for reals. And the boy sets off a third cry for help. Guess how the villagers react?
• In the Grimms' "Snow White" story, the wicked Queen makes two attempts on Snow White's life (giving her a comb with poison on it, binding her corset with a magic ribbon that suffocates her), before offering her the infamous apple.
• In "The Nix in the Mill-Pond", the woman tries to rescue her husband from the Nixie's hands three times.
• In "Rumpelstiltskin", the title character gives the miller's daughter three days to guess his name. After he spun for her for three nights.
• In "Jack and the Beanstalk", Jack steals three treasures from the giant: a bag of gold, a goose that lays golden eggs, and a singing harp.
• The Brothers Grimm's "The Honey Princess/The Queen Bee": Three princes are set to accomplish three tasks in order to win three princesses' hands in marriage.
• "The Three Spinners" help a girl against an impossible spinning task.
• In "Brother and Sister", it is the third stream that Brother drinks from; it is the third time he goes out to hunt that the king finds Sister; it was the third time she returned from the dead that her husband caught her and brought her back to life.
• In "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", the heroine meets three women who give her gifts; she uses them to bribe her way to her husband, and the third time, he is not drugged to sleep.
• In "Maid Maleen", when she is pretending to be the bride, she speaks to three objects; the bride must find out from her three times what she said, and the bridegroom figures out the substitution.
• In "The True Sweetheart", the heroine goes to the ball three times.
• In the Russian folktale "The Death of Koschei the Deathless", Prince Ivan has three sisters. Three shape-shifting wizards appear to court his sisters on three separate occasions. Ivan gives Koschei water three times; consequently, Koschei promises to spare his life three times. Ivan attempts to rescue his wife three times before getting killed. During his quest, he is helped three times by animals whom he spared at some point... It is all over the place.
• Anecdotes have plenty of examples. For an example, three nation anecdotes.
• In "The Three Aunts", the three aunts help her on three successive nights.
• In Iron Hans, the prince gets three chances to watch the well. He fails all the three, but only on the third is he sent away.
• In Bearskin, the hero tells the youngest daughter to wait for him three years — if he doesn't return then, he's dead and she's free to marry as she wishes.
• In "The Love of Three Oranges" — well, three oranges. Or citrons or whatever.
• In "The Rose Tree", the girl loses three sets of candles, and later gets three gifts.
• In "The Feather of Finist the Falcon", the daughter asks three times for a gift, meets three old women along the way, and at the end, bribes the bride three times before she manages to wake Finist.
• "Prince Ivan, the Witch Baby, and the Little Sister of the Sun": While on the run, Prince Ivan meets a pair of seamstresses, asks them to live with them, and weeps when the women tell they will die after running out of needles and thread. Later he meets Vertodub, asks him to let him live with him, and weeps when the giant says he will die after uprooting a forest. Still later, he meets Vertoger, asks him to let him live with him, and weeps when the giant says he will die after leveling a mountain range.
• In "Boots Who Made the Princess Say 'That's a Story!'", Boots is the youngest of three brothers to try the engagement challenge.
• In The Gold Mountain the hero must endure three nights of escalating beatings to break the curse. Later, he finds three giants arguing over three magic items, which he steals and uses to get his kingdom and his family back.
• In The Brothers Grimm's The Golden Goose, three sons, and three innkeeper's daughters
• In "The Princess on the Glass Hill", three brothers, three horses, and three golden apples.
• In The Black Thief and the Knight of the Glen, there are three princes, and the thief tells three stories to ransom them, and the first story features three witches.
• In The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was the youth has two spent three nights in a Haunted Castle.
• In Soria Moria Castle, he rescues three princess, from trolls with three, or six, or nine heads.
• In Asbjørnsen and Moe's The Seven Foals, three drinks from the flask are needed to lift the sword.
• In The Jezinkas, there are three jezinkas.
• In Jesper Who Herded the Hares, he has two older brothers, and is set three tasks.
• In Tsarevich Petr and the Wizard, he was one of three brothers, and finds three princesses.
• "The Three Little Men in the Wood":
  • The main character stumbles upon three little men.
  • The protagonist and her stepsister get three rewards or curses placed upon them, respectively.
  • The queen's ghost is seen three times.
  • The king must swing his sword three times to bring his wife back.
• In Pintosmalto, Betta bribes the queen three times for three nights.
• In the fable of the Honest Woodsman, a woodsman loses his ax in an accident when it flies into the river. When a water spirit appears, he tells her of his dilemma, and then she dives into the river to find his ax. It takes three such dives before the woodsman recognizes the ax as his. As a reward for his honesty, he also gets to keep the other two axes the spirit had dug up.
• In The Princess Who Wore A Rabbit Skin Dress, a queen had three husbands — the first was the father of her daughter, the second gets no details and makes no impact on the story, and the third, after her death, wants to marry her daughter.
• All over the place in Kate Crackernuts:
  • It takes the Queen and her Wicked Witch accomplice three tries to successfully curse Princess Anne.
  • Princess Kate follows the enchanted prince to three different balls with The Fair Folk.
  • Three waves of the magic wand restore Princess Anne to normal.
  • There bites of the magical bird break the spell on the prince.
• "Morozko":
  • Father Frost asks the old woman's stepdaughter if she is feeling warm three times.
  • The family dog barks the old woman's stepdaughter's future fortunes and her daughter's impeding demise three times.
• "The Wise Little Girl": The Tsar summons the little girl, but he insists she must meet three conditions: "she must appear before me neither naked nor dressed, neither on foot nor on horseback, neither bearing gifts nor empty-handed".
• In "Mother Holle", the widow's daughter works for Frau Holle for three days.
• In "The Three Snake Leaves", three magic leaves are used to bring creatures back to life. They are used to resurrect one snake, the princess and the main character.
• In "The Swan Maiden" variant "The Drummer", the main character is led to the glass mountain by three giants. After climbing up the mountain, he knocks on the witch's door three times before the woman opens the door. And he must fulfill three impossible tasks imposed by the witch in order to free the king's daughters.
• Another "Swan Maiden" type story titled "The Three Swans", has the titular three birds. Also, the hunter must endure the torture of three dragons for three days to undo the swans' curse.
• "The Elf Maiden": The titular character asks her husband to look for a place to erect their house, warning him about keeping his eyes shut during the night, no matter what. In the morning, their house has been built, and the woman tells him to fix on a spot for their cow-stalls. The next day, their cowhouse has been built, and she tells him to measure out the ground for a storehouse, which is also built in one single night.
• "The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh": Princess Margaret's Wicked Stepmother "did her magic and with spells three times three, and with passes nine times nine", declares three Magic Kisses from Margaret's brother to be the Curse Escape Clause, and said brother travels with 33 men to rescue his sister.
• The Norwegian Guile Hero Espen Askeladd combines this with Youngest Child Wins in most of his stories. When some figure of authority (usually Espen's father or the king) needs some task accomplished, Espen and his two older brothers (usually named Per and Pål) set out to test their luck. While Per and Pål fail, usually due to their pride or carelesness, Espen rises to the challenge and wins the princess and half the kingdom.
• In "The Star Child", the eponymous Star Child wanders about for three years looking for his mother after being Punished with Ugly before he was captured and Made a Slave by an evil magician. The magician sends him to find a piece of three different colored on separate days, and three times the Child gives it away to a beggar who needs it more. After giving his third piece of gold, the Star Child regains his beauty, receives his mother's forgiveness, and becomes King.
• In Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's tales:
  • "King Goldenlocks": The golden-haired prince flees to another country whose king has three daughters.
  • "The Turnip Princess": The prince finds three cursed creatures in the cave: one old crone, one bear and one dog.
  • "The Three Flowers":
    • The female protagonist has three brothers.
    • After her brothers have killed her stalker, three beautiful flowers grow on his grave.
    • The main character has three children who are murdered by her evil mother-in-law.
  • "Nine Bags Of Gold": Marie's boyfriend needs three times three sacks of gold to be allowed to marry her.
  • "The Enchanted Quill": The main character has three siblings -one of which spends three years sleeping-, and three unwanted suitors.
  • "Follow Me, Jodel!": The titular character must beat his brother Michael in three challenges to inherit his father's lands: he must bring the most beautiful silk cloth, the best leather jacket and the loveliest bride.
• "The Brown Bear of the Green Glen":
  • The King of Erin has three sons.
  • During his journey, John meets three giants.
  • John takes three bottles of water of the green Isle to cure his father, as well as three magic food items: a bottle of brandy, a loaf of bread, and a wheel of cheese.
• "Tattercoats": The old nurse begs the old lord three times to let his granddaughter go with him to the king's ball.
• "The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs":
  • The King attempts to get rid of the main character three times.
  • The main character must get three hairs of the Devil's head.
  • The main character must help three persons in order to continue his journey.
• "Jorinde and Joringel":
  • The witch changes herself into an owl, flies in circles over Jorinde three times and hoots three times before changing back into human.
  • Joringel spends three times three days searching for the blood-red flower.
• In Asbjørnsen and Moe's "The Old Dame and her Hen":
  • The old widow has three daughters.
  • Each daughter looks for the missing hen, falls into the trap door and runs into the troll.
  • The youngest daughter tricks the troll into carrying a sack to her mother three times.
• "Good Day, Fellow! Axe Handle!": The ferryman has three children: two sons and one daughter.
• Alexander Afanasyev's "Kolobok": The titular character escapes from three hungry animals before meeting its demise.
• "The Frost, the Sun, and the Wind": A traveller runs into three elemental entities, the Sun, the Frost and the Wind.
• "The Soldier And Death": The soldier is given three dry biscuits as payment for his army service. Later, he meets three old beggars whom he gives his biscuits. The third beggard gives him a magic sack which he uses to hunt three geese.
• "Reygoch": The titular giant stomps on the ground three times to make a fissure which lets him and Curlylocks leap into the underground realm.
• This is a feature of tale type ATU 301, "The Three Kidnapped Princesses" (in the East Slavic Index, "The Three Underground Kingdoms/Tsardoms"): three brothers follow a creature or monster to a well, but only the youngest is brave enough to go down the well. Down there, the youngest brother finds three princesses (who may have been kidnapped in a prologue to the action in some variants, or are simply found there in others), each inside a castle made of metal (the first of copper, the second of silver, and the third of gold). Each of the princesses is being held captive by a monster (three in total).
• "The Three Golden Children", or, previously, "The Three Golden Sons" (ATU 707): the youngest of three sisters gives birth to children with marvellous qualities and appearances, but someone casts them in the water to die.
  • European redaction (mostly Western European): The youngest of three sisters marries a king and gives birth to three children (two boys and a girl), who are cast in the water to die. Years later, their jealous aunts send them on quests for three marvellous items: a water source of magical provenance, a magical tree, and a speaking bird.
    • "The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird"
    • "Princess Belle-Etoile"
    • "The Three Little Birds"
    • "Ancilotto, King of Provino"
  • East Slavic redaction (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine), Baltic (Lithuanian and Latvian) and Finnic (Estonia and Finland): the youngest of three sisters promises to bear children in multiples of 3, as in, nine or twelve. She marries the king and her jealous sisters/a witch falsifies a letter, and she is cast in the sea in a barrel with one of her sons. However, they survive and establish themselves on an island. The boy then goes to rescue his missing elder brothers (cf. The Tale of Tsar Saltan).
    • The Prince who rescued his Brothers (Estonia) - the king marries a woman of similar countenance as himself, and she gives birth to six children in a first pregnancy, then three in a second, and finally three in a third one. The children are given to a devil-like character named Old Boy by a witch and replaced for puppies, save for the last baby boy. The king falls for the trick and orders his wife to be cast in the water on an iron bed.

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