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Overview
Three speaking goslings fear a wolf and seek materials for a protective home. All three build a house with donated straw, but the largest then locks out her two sisters. The remaining pair build a house of hay together, and the middle sister then locks out the smallest. A man pities the smallest and builds her a stone house reinforced with iron, including its door and balcony. The wolf blows down the first two houses and swallows their inhabitants, but cannot break the youngest’s shelter by blowing or trampling.
The smallest keeps the door shut even when the wolf proposes reconciliation over macaroni. She obtains its butter and cheese through the balcony and eventually invites it to put its mouth against an opening. Instead of serving pasta she pours boiling water through, killing it. She cuts open its stomach and both sisters emerge alive: the narrator explains that the greedy wolf swallowed them whole. They ask forgiveness for their earlier selfishness, and she welcomes them into her home. The explicit sister relationship belongs to this animal household, without a stated parentage or connection to the separately collected pig-house stories.
Origins & earliest records
Crane, Italian Popular Tales (1885), LXXXVI, The Three Goslings, pp. 267–270; source: Bernoni, Tradizioni popolari veneziane, Puntata III, p. 65, Le Tre Ochete.
Records & interpretation
The complete selected English tale describes these actions and their ending. Its published source attribution distinguishes the local witness from parallel tales.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Italian Popular Tales: LXXXVI, The Three Goslings, pp. 267–270
Source listed as Bernoni, Tradizioni popolari veneziane, Puntata III, p. 65, Le Tre Ochete; original-language text not independently collated.
Family, evolution & connections
Largest, middle-sized and smallest gosling sisters
The three goslings repeatedly call one another sisters. Largest, middle-sized and smallest describe the telling’s size order, not stated birth order. The smallest releases her swallowed sisters alive from the dead wolf; no named parents are supplied.
Wolf of the Seven Kids
Crane’s smallest gosling cuts open the killed wolf and releases her two sisters alive. In Hunt’s Grimm 5, the mother goat opens the sleeping wolf and releases six kids, then fills its belly with stones. The rescuer, victim count and wolf’s death sequence differ; this comparison does not establish direct influence.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary historical collectionCrane (1885): LXXXVI, The Three Goslings, pp. 267–270Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.