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All the childhood tales we looked at the beginning of the last chapter are similarly built up around threes. In Jack and the Beanstalk this takes the form of the hero's three visits to the giant's castle, escaping with three golden treasures of ascending value: the gold (which is just itself), the goose which lays golden eggs (guaranteeing an indefinite supply into the future), the golden harp (which is somehow best of all, because it plays wonderful, inspiring music, touching the soul). And as usual it is the last in the sequence of three which leads to the climax, precipitating the reversal and the end of the story. The stories of the Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Little Pigs are each built up around two sequences of three. Each has three heroes, who each in turn must confront the dark figure. In the first, the goats are of ascending size, and it is important that the smallest and middle-sized goats each trick the troll into letting them past, until the biggest, strongest goat can at last tackle the troll head on, butting him to destruction, thus allowing all three to proceed up the mountain to their happy ending. In the second tale, it is equally significant that the pigs build houses of ascending strength, so that the wolf can easily blow down the first, made of straw, and slightly less easily the second, made of wood, but is defeated by the third, because it is made of brick. It is this which precipitates the wolf's destruction and, for the third pig, the happy ending.1

The role of `three' in these old folk tales is so explicit that one cannot miss it. When we come to a more modern example, Peter Rabbit, this may not be quite so obvious. But, so unconsciously engrained is the archetype of `three, we see it playing exactly the same role in building up tension towards the climax as in a folk story. When the hero finally comes face to face with Mr McGregor, he first runs away and gets caught in a net by the buttons of his coat. He is about to be caught when he wriggles out of his coat and makes his first `thrilling escape. He is then pursued by Mr McGregor into a shed and hides in a watering can, but gives himself away by sneezing, thus having to make a second `thrilling escape. Only when he feels finally trapped does he leap up onto the wheelbarrow, giving him the vision to see how to make his third `thrilling escape. Once again it is the third which proves the charm, allowing him at last to run off home to his happy ending.

What we see in all these examples is how `three' is the final trigger for something important to happen. Three in stories is the number of growth and transformation. Much as we say `Ready, steady, go' to prepare and concentrate the runners at the start of a race, so the process of three conveys the steady build up to a moment of transformation which enables the hero or heroine to move on to the next stage. It conveys to us a sense that the miraculous developments which take place in stories do not just happen instantly and effortlessly; they require a steady accumulation of experience, concentration and effort, until everything is ready to allow the transformation to take place. And we see this rule of three expressed in four main ways:

(1) The `simple' or `cumulative three', where each thing is of much the same value, but all three have to be put together or succeed each other in sequence before the hero or heroine can move on, or come to their final transformation: e.g., Cinderella's three visits to the ball, the three treasurecaves Aladdin has to go through before he discovers the lamp.

(2) The `progressive' or `ascending three', where each thing is of positive value but each a little more important or valuable than the last: e.g., the ascending value of Jack's three treasures won from the giant (this idea is more explicitly expressed in those folk tales where the hero has to win three objects, made in turn of bronze, silver and gold). There is also the 'descending three, where each is of negative value, but similarly working