"The Three Billy Goats Gruff" () is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in their Norske Folkeeventyr, first published between 1841 and 1844. It has an Aarne-Thompson type of 122E. The first version of the story in English appeared in George Webbe Dasent's translation of some of the Norske Folkeeventyr, published as Popular Tales from the Norse in 1859. The heroes of the tale are three male goats who need to outsmart a ravenous troll to cross the bridge to their feeding ground.

Characters

The story introduces three billy goats (male goats), sometimes identified as a youngster, father and grandfather, but more often described as brothers. In other adaptations, there is a baby or child goat, mama goat and papa goat.

"Gruff" was used as their family name in the earliest English translation by Dasent and this has been perpetuated; but this has been pointed out as a mistranslation of the Norwegian name which was here employed in the sense of "tuft, clump" of hair on the forehead of domesticated livestock. The word can mean "fizz" or "effervescence", but also a "frizzle (of hair)" according to Brynildsen's Norwegian–English dictionary, whereas explains the word to mean a "flower cluster" or bushy inflorescence.

The following is a list of children's book adaptions of the story into the English language, suitable for the elementary school classroom:

  • Arnold, Tim <!--own illustr.-->(1993) The Three Billy Goats Gruff Macmillan
  • Brown, Marcia <!--own illustr.-->(1991) [1957] The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Harcourt

Golden Books did a version of the story that was similar to the book. The only difference is that when the troll is washed away by the stream, he is later mentioned to have moved into a cave.

Media adaptations

Audiobooks

  • Scholastic Corporation produced an audio recording in 1963, with music composed and directed by Arthur Rubinstein, narrated by Bob Thomas, and cover illustration by Susan Blair and Ellen Appleby. It was first made available as a phonograph record, and then on Compact Cassette.

Films

  • The 3 Billy Piñatas (2015) is a version with a Spanish twist, produced by "Team Juan" at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee

Television

  • In 1995, Australian children's TV series Johnson and Friends adapted this fairy tale, with the characters 'roleplaying' and acting out the story in a humorous fashion.
  • In 2004, the story is retold on Hi-5. This version has the goats replaced by sheep and instead of the troll wanting to eat them, he just wanted to sleep and was annoyed by their noise. The story ended with the biggest sheep giving him earmuffs made out of wool. In the original Australian version of the show, three sheep crossing a bridge disturb the napping bunyip underneath.
  • In 2008, the BBC created a modern adaptation for its Fairy Tales TV series. In this, the story was given a twist in that the troll was presented as a tragic, cruelly maligned victim.

Music and musicals

Frank Luther wrote a version of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" geared towards music education for elementary school grade children, published in "Singing on Our Way", Our Singing World Series by the Ginn and Company (c. 1949). Some years earlier Yvonne Ravell had recorded a version she wrote in sung (1940),