Editing Wolf, goat and cabbage problem (section)

==Occurrence and variations==
The puzzle is one of a number of [[river crossing puzzle]]s, where the object is to move a set of items across a river subject to various restrictions.

In the earliest known occurrence of this problem, in the medieval manuscript ''[[Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes]]'', the three objects are a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage, but other cosmetic variations of the puzzle also exist, such as: wolf, sheep, and cabbage;<ref name=b>[http://www.zib.de/Publications/Reports/SC-95-27.ps.Z ''Alcuin's Transportation Problems and Integer Programming''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719120137/http://www.zib.de/Publications/Reports/SC-95-27.ps.Z |date=2011-07-19 }},
Ralf Borndörfer, [[Martin Grötschel]], and Andreas Löbel, preprint SC-95-27 (November 1995), Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin.</ref><ref name=ascher /><sup>, p.&nbsp;26</sup> fox, chicken, and grain;<ref>[http://alloy.mit.edu/tutorial3/sidenote-RC-puzzle.html The Classic River Crossing Puzzle] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080617215002/http://alloy.mit.edu/tutorial3/sidenote-RC-puzzle.html |date=2008-06-17 }}</ref> fox, goose and corn;<ref>Mary Jane Sterling, ''Math Word Problems for Dummies'', p. 313</ref> and panther, pig, and porridge.<ref>{{cite book | last = Stewart | first = Ian | authorlink = Ian Stewart (mathematician) | title = The Magical Maze | publisher = Phoenix | year = 1998 | isbn = 0-7538-0514-6 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/magicalmazeseein0000stew_h0p9 }}</ref> The logic of the puzzle, in which there are three objects, ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'', such that neither ''A'' and ''B'' nor ''B'' and ''C'' can be left together, remains the same.

Another version of the puzzle stemming from a Chinese legend is recorded in an 18th-century painted panel by Japanese artist [[Maruyama Ōkyo]], in the collection of the British museum. According to the legend, when a tiger has three cubs, one of them will be a leopard rather than a tiger, and more fierce than the others. Following this legend, the subject of a tiger with her cubs became a traditional subject for art in east Asia.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Sung | first = Hou-Mei | issue = 2 | journal = Artibus Asiae | jstor = 3250187 | pages = 281–293 | title = Tiger with cubs: A rediscovered Ming court painting | volume = 64 | year = 2004}}</ref> The depiction by Ōkyo shows the tiger family crossing a river, with the mother carrying one cub across the river at a time. This depicts a puzzle equivalent to the puzzle of the wolf, goat, and cabbage, asking how the mother can do this without leaving the leopard cub alone with any of the other tiger cubs.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.artfund.org/blog/2006/10/20/a-tigers-tale-british-museum-buys-rare-japanese-screen|title=A tiger's tale: British Museum buys rare Japanese screen|date=20 October 2006|publisher=[[Art Fund]]|accessdate=2021-01-08}}</ref> The same variation of the puzzle has also been recorded as a [[koan]] of [[Ryōan-ji]], a [[Zen]] temple in [[Kyoto]].<ref>{{cite book | title = Japanese Gardens: Symbolism and Design | first1 = Seiko | last1 = Goto | first2 = Takahiro | last2 = Naka | publisher = Routledge | year = 2015 | isbn = 9781317411642 | page = 20 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VN29CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA20}}</ref>

The puzzle has been found in the folklore of African-Americans, Cameroon, the Cape Verde Islands, Denmark, Ethiopia, Ghana, Italy, Romania, Russia, Scotland, the Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.<ref name=ascher /><sup>, pp.&nbsp;26&ndash;27;</sup><ref>{{cite journal|jstor=2796709|title=235. Three Zande Texts|journal=Man|first=E. E.|last=Evans-Pritchard|date=1962|volume=62|pages=149–152|doi=10.2307/2796709}}</ref>  It has been given the index number H506.3 in [[Stith Thompson]]'s motif index of folk literature, and is ATU 1579 in the [[Aarne–Thompson classification system]].<ref>[http://www.folklore.ee/Folklore/vol35/voolaid.pdf "Carrying a Wolf, a Goat, and a Cabbage across the Stream. Metamorphoses of ATU 1579"], Piret Voolaid, ''Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore'' '''35''' (2007), pp. 111–130. Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum.</ref>

The puzzle was a favorite of [[Lewis Carroll]],<ref>p. 17, ''Rediscovered Lewis Carroll Puzzles'', Lewis Carroll, compiled by Edward Wakeling, Courier Dover Publications, 1996, {{ISBN|0-486-28861-7}}.</ref> and has been reprinted in various collections of [[recreational mathematics]].<ref name=ascher /><sup>, p.&nbsp;26.</sup>

In his 'Arabian Nights' memoir, ''Meetings with Remarkable Men'', the metaphysical Magus, [[G. I. Gurdjieff]] cites this riddle as "The Wolf, the goat and the cabbage". He notes, "This popular riddle clearly shows that...not solely by means of the ingenuity which every normal man should have, but that in addition he must not be lazy nor spare his strength, but must cross the river extra times for the attainment of his aim."

Variations of the puzzle also appear in the adventure game ''[[Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon]]'', the [[Nintendo DS]] puzzle game ''[[Professor Layton and the Curious Village]]'', and in ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "[[Gone Maggie Gone]]", where [[Homer Simpson|Homer]] has to get across a river with [[Maggie Simpson|Maggie]], [[Santa's Little Helper]], and a jar of rat poison that looks like candy. In the ''[[Class of 3000]]'' episode "Westley Side Story", Sunny and his students perform a similar exercise involving a chicken, a [[coyote]] and a sack of corn. The ''[[Between the Lions]]'' episode "Farmer Ken's Puzzle" portrays it being made into a computer game with a cat, a hen, and a sack of seeds. 

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File:Playable_Fox_Chook_Corn_puzzle.svg|thumb|Interactive chicken, fox and grain problem.
default [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Playable_Fox_Chook_Corn_puzzle.svg]
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In the ''[[Bull (2016 TV series)|Bull]]'' episode "Justice for Cable", Benny begins a riddle with "a man has a fox, a duck, and a bag of beans".  Bull inexplicably declares "There is no answer", and everyone believes him.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bull-2016&episode=s03e04|title = Springfield! Springfield!}}</ref>

In some parts of Africa, variations on the puzzle have been found in which the boat can carry two objects instead of only one.  When the puzzle is weakened in this way it is possible to introduce the extra constraint that no two items, including ''A'' and ''C'', can be left together.<ref name=ascher /><sup>, p.&nbsp;27.</sup>

In the ''[[Star Trek: Prodigy]]'' episode "Time Amok", a holographic version of [[Kathryn Janeway]] employs the tale (here told as the '''chicken, fox and grain''' problem) to teach the crew of the USS ''Protostar'' how to work together.