Brides On Their Trial
Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm · 1884
A shepherd can't choose between three sisters until his mother sets out a plate of cheese and watches how each one eats it. A tidy little lesson in moderation, over almost as soon as it begins.
From Grimms' Household Tales. See the whole collection.
There was once a young shepherd who wished much to marry, and was acquainted with three sisters who were all equally pretty, so that it was difficult to him to make a choice, and he could not decide to give the preference to any one of them. Then he asked his mother for advice, and she said, “Invite all three, and set some cheese before them, and watch how they eat it.” The youth did so; the first, however, swallowed the cheese with the rind on; the second hastily cut the rind off the cheese, but she cut it so quickly that she left much good cheese with it, and threw that away also; the third peeled the rind off carefully, and cut neither too much nor too little. The shepherd told all this to his mother, who said, “Take the third for thy wife.” This he did, and lived contentedly and happily with her.
Public domain. Text from Grimms' Household Tales (Margaret Hunt translation, 1884), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition