The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Read how three billy goats named Gruff outwit the troll under the bridge in this Norwegian folktale for children, with three reading levels.

Region: Innlandet
Category: Folk & Fairy Tales
Ages: From 4, with three reading levels (ages 4–6, 7–9 and 10+)
Languages: English, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish

About the legend

Being: Troll (the troll under the bridge)
Cultural meaning: In this tale the troll is what stands between the hungry goats and the summer farm: he lives under the bridge they have to cross and calls it 'my bridge'. He is big and loud, but he is also greedy, and his wish for an ever bigger goat is what lets the small ones outwit him.
Fun fact: In an old version of this tale from Fortun, the little goat has one stomach, the middle goat two and the big goat three. So when summer is over, the little goat is full first, and the big goat still has a stomach left to fill!

Cultural notes

«De tre bukkene Bruse» is one of the Norwegian folk tales collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. In the 1852 edition of their Norske Folkeeventyr it is number 40, under the full title «De tre Bukkene Bruse, som skulde gaae til Sæters og gjøre sig fede» (The three billy goats Bruse, who were going up to the summer farm to make themselves fat). According to the editors' note, the main version was told at Biri, though the editors thought it probably belonged in Gausdal or Læssø, and it was also known around Grimstad. In Norwegian the goats are called Bukkene Bruse; George Webbe Dasent's English translation, Popular Tales from the Norse (1859), made them the Billy Goats Gruff. A summer farm (seter, or støl, the word used in the Fortun version) is where the farm animals were taken in summer, and going there to grow fat is the goats' whole reason for the journey. The story is built in threes: three goats, three crossings, and the third one decides it.

About this retelling

Traditional tale, retold for children A retelling of the classic Norwegian folk tale of the three billy goats who outwit the troll under the bridge.

Based on «De tre Bukkene Bruse» in Asbjørnsen and Moe's Norske Folkeeventyr. The three goats on their way to the summer farm, the bridge over the waterfall, the troll with eyes like pewter plates and a nose as long as a rake handle, 'Who's that trip-trapping on my bridge?', the two smaller goats who tell the troll to wait for a bigger one, the big goat who makes the bridge creak, and the goats so fat they can hardly walk home all come from the tale, though the tale never calls the goats brothers; that is our reading. In the original each goat simply arrives at the bridge and points the troll to the next one, and the big goat promises to poke out the troll's eyes and crush his marrow and bones, does so, and butts him into the waterfall. Here the three goats make their plan together before the bridge, the big goat chooses to go last and stands ready, his rhyme is new, and the river carries the troll away alive; he never comes back. The long winter, the road through the birch woods, the mist over the bridge, the plan and the brothers' talk were added for Nordic Tales.

Sources

Themes

cleverness
teamwork
courage
helping each other
De tre bukkene Bruse
Bukkene Bruse
Billy Goats Gruff
Asbjørnsen and Moe
Norske Folkeeventyr
troll
bridge
goats
summer farm
seter
waterfall
animal tale
Norwegian folk tale