Fairy tale · Consequences · Cleverness
The Third Wish Is the Tricky One
Three wishes, and a rule nobody reads carefully enough.
- Age range
- Ages 5-9
- Reading time
- 7 minutes
- Category
- Fairy tales
What happens
A baker's daughter is granted three wishes with one condition: each must undo something the last one did. Two wishes go badly and brilliantly wrong before she works out what the rule was actually for.
Read the opening
Listen to this story
The rule was printed on the inside of the lamp, in letters so small that most people never found them at all: EACH WISH MUST UNDO SOMETHING THE LAST ONE DID.
Tesni read it twice. Then she wished for a mountain of bread, because the bakery was empty and the village was hungry, and a mountain of bread is exactly what she got — filling the square, blocking three doors, and burying the well.
"Right," she said, standing on top of it. "So that's what the rule meant."
The rest of the story is written around your child — their name, their age, and the hero they describe.
What if your child were the hero?
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Why this one is worth your time
- Classic three-wish structure with an actual logic puzzle inside it.
- Consequences arrive quickly and visibly, which is how young children learn cause and effect.
- The heroine solves it herself; no adult rescues her.
Talk about it afterward
- What would you wish for first, knowing the rule?
- Why is it hard to undo something you asked for?
What if your child were the hero?