The wolf, goat and cabbage problem is a river crossing puzzle. It dates back to at least the 9th century, and has entered the folklore of several cultures. The story A farmer went to a market and purchased a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage. On his way home, the farmer came to the bank of a river and rented a boat. But crossing the river by boat, the farmer could carry only himself and a single one of his purchases: the wolf, the goat, or the cabbage. If left unattended together, the wolf would eat the goat, or the goat would eat the cabbage. The farmer's challenge was to carry himself and his purchases to the far bank of the river, leaving each purchase intact. Solution The first step that must be taken is to let the goat go across the river, as any other actions will result in the goat or the cabbage being eaten. When the farmer returns to the original side, he has the choice of taking either the wolf or the cabbage across next. If he takes the wolf across, he would have to return to get the cabbage, resulting in the wolf eating the goat. If he takes the cabbage across second, he will need to return to get the wolf, resulting in the cabbage being eaten by the goat. The dilemma is solved by taking the wolf (or the cabbage) over and bringing the goat back. Now he can take the cabbage (or the wolf) over, and finally return to fetch the goat. His actions in the solution are summarized in the following steps: Take the goat over Return to other side Take the wolf or cabbage over Return with the goat Take the cabbage or wolf over Return Take goat over Thus there are seven crossings, four forward and three back. Note: the key to the solution is realizing that one can bring things back (emphasized above). This is often unclear from the wording of the story, but never forbidden. Knowing this will make the problem easy to solve even by small children. The focus of the puzzle is not just task scheduling, but creative thinking, similarly to the Nine dots puzzle. Occurrence and variations The puzzle is one of a number of river crossing puzzles, where the object is to move a set of items across a river subject to various