09-09-2024, 08:49 AM
Thanks everyone for the comments so far. I generally don't use spoilers but in this case I'm working with a deadline. (fun project or no) Below was the best answer I could find about possible origins of This Little Piggy. I used it as a framework.
The first known full version of “This Little Piggy” was recorded in The Famous Tommy Thumb's Little Story-Book, published in London about 1760. It is ostensibly about playing with toes, but can also be a caricature description of marketplace pigs’ lives:
This little piggy went to market
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy got roast beef
This little piggy had none
And this little piggy cried
“Wee, wee, wee!” all the way home
Line by line:
This little piggy went to market
When a pig goes to market, it is not to buy something, it is to be slaughtered and sold in the meat section.
This little piggy stayed home
Not all pigs are ready for market every week, so the majority of course stay home.
This little piggy had roast beef
Pigs are omnivorous, so when you fatten them up for market, you can feed them scraps off the table, and might save the fat and gristle from your roast beef to help them achieve weight and desired fattiness.
This little piggy had none
But before market, pigs are not fed, so that cleaning the guts is facilitated.
And this little piggy cried “Wee wee wee!” all the way home
Some pigs offered to market are not sold, and whether they realize their good luck or not, they come back home alive and squealing.
A domestic pig’s life was short back then, as it is now.
The first known full version of “This Little Piggy” was recorded in The Famous Tommy Thumb's Little Story-Book, published in London about 1760. It is ostensibly about playing with toes, but can also be a caricature description of marketplace pigs’ lives:
This little piggy went to market
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy got roast beef
This little piggy had none
And this little piggy cried
“Wee, wee, wee!” all the way home
Line by line:
This little piggy went to market
When a pig goes to market, it is not to buy something, it is to be slaughtered and sold in the meat section.
This little piggy stayed home
Not all pigs are ready for market every week, so the majority of course stay home.
This little piggy had roast beef
Pigs are omnivorous, so when you fatten them up for market, you can feed them scraps off the table, and might save the fat and gristle from your roast beef to help them achieve weight and desired fattiness.
This little piggy had none
But before market, pigs are not fed, so that cleaning the guts is facilitated.
And this little piggy cried “Wee wee wee!” all the way home
Some pigs offered to market are not sold, and whether they realize their good luck or not, they come back home alive and squealing.
A domestic pig’s life was short back then, as it is now.