There was once upon a time a pig who lived with her three children on a large, comfortable, old-fashioned farmyard. The eldest of the little pigs was called Browny, the second Whitey, and the youngest and best looking Blacky. Now Browny was a very dirty little pig, and I am sorry to say spent most of his time rolling and wallowing about in the mud. He was never so happy as on a wet day, when the mud in the farmyard got soft, and thick, and slab.

Chuchundra sat down and cried till the tears rolled off his whiskers. “I am a very poor man,” he sobbed. “I never had spirit enough to run out into the middle of the room. H’sh! I mustn’t tell you anything. Can’t you hear, Rikki-tikki?” Rikki-tikki listened. The house was as still as still, but he thought he could just catch the faintest scratch-scratch in the world–a noise as faint as that of a wasp walking on a window-pane–the dry scratch of a snake’s scales on brick-work.

Once upon a time there was a rich farmer woman who had three sons. One day they all three told their mother they wanted to get married. To which their mother replied: ‘Do as you like, but see that you choose good wives; and, to make certain of this, take with you these three balls of wool, and give it to the girls to knit. Whoever knits the best pair of socks will be my favourite daughter-in-law.’

ONCE upon a time there were three billy goats, who were to go up to the hillside to eat grass and make themselves fat. The name of each one of them was “Gruff”.

On the way up was a bridge over a cascading stream they had to cross; and under the bridge lived a great ugly troll, with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker.

Once upon a time there was a poor miller who had three sons. The years went by and the miller died, leaving nothing but his mill, his donkey, and a cat. The eldest son took the mill, the second-born son rode off on the donkey, and the youngest son inherited the cat .

“Oh, well”, said the youngest son, “I’ll eat this cat, and make some mittens out of his fur. Then I will have nothing left in the world and shall die of hunger.”

This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the Tailorbird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice, but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting. He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits.

Adam and Eve had sons, and their sons had sons, and the sons of the sons had sons. By that time there were lots of people on the world. God sat back and watched them. He saw them hurting each other, being selfish, and not thinking about him very much.

But God saw Noah, who was a very good man, and said, ‘I like Noah, but I don’t like the others much.’

The cat said that if we stayed on the beach, we would die of hunger. But I said that wasn’t strictly true. We would die of thirst before we died of hunger. We argued about that point for a little while, but eventually we agreed to go in-land. We climbed up the dunes, and nosed our way through some long grass. The parrot flew over-head, and it was then that I saw that she had a something strapped to her foot.

IN the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant–a new Elephant–an Elephant’s Child–who was full of ’satiable curtiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions.