'The Magic Porridge Pot’ is a fairy story which was published by The Brothers Grimm in their Kinder- und Hausmärchen collection in 1815 (‘Vom Sűβen Brei’ - later ‘Der Sűβe Brei’). It is a very short and simple tale: a poor and pious (‘armes, frommes’) girl who lives alone with her mother has nothing left to eat. She goes into the wood, where she encounters an old woman, who knowing of her sorrow, gives her a magic pot. This pot will cook ‘Hirsebrei’ (millet gruel) when the girl commands it so that she and her mother will always have enough to eat. One day, when the mother is alone, she tries to order the pot to cook. It obeys - but ignores the request to stop. By the time the girl returns home, and is able to stop the pot, the whole town is swamped and anyone wanting to reach it has to eat there way there.
Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde for the fairy tale Sweet Porridge,(1909)
Folklorist Marina Warner, believes that the story ‘speaks volumes about a world where hunger and want and dreadful toil are the lot of the majority’ (Warner, 2014, p.77). It is a joyful tale of pure wish fulfilment – drowning in porridge at the end of the story would seem to be a rather amusing event, and there doesn’t seem to be any particular judgement on the mother for greed or her presumption in trying to use the pot.
Perhaps because it so slight and under-developed, the story has not been a particular favourite for fairy tale anthologies, or even selections purely from the Grimm brothers. Edgar Taylor, the first translator of Grimm’s Tales into English, did not include it in his 1823 and 1826 collections. It did appear as ‘The Sweet Soup’ in a 1853 collection with no credited translator, and in Margaret Hunt’s translation with the slightly more familiar title of ‘Sweet Porridge’ in 1884. Lucy and Walter Crane did not choose it for their well-known collection from 1914, not did Philip Pullman include it in his 2012 Grimm Tales. Where it has really flourished has been in books designed for very young readers, as part of reading schemes, where the uncomplicated story and opportunities for repeating language (‘Cook, pot, cook’ and ‘Stop, pot, stop’) have been seen as advantageous. These simple retellings but various ‘twists’ put into them can nonetheless be quite revealing about the author’s views about children and food.
Ladybird Books
The Magic Porridge Pot, retold by Vera Southgate and illustrated by Robert Lumley, appeared as a Ladybird ‘Easy Reading’ Book in 1971. The illustrations would seem to reflect the original setting and time period. There is no shying away from the poverty and hunger: the girl’s clothes are ragged and patched and she has no shoes. A whole page is dedicated to her crying in the woods for lack of food. There is, however, no mention of her being ‘good’ or ‘pious’ – her hunger is justification enough for the old woman to give her the magic pot ‘Then you shall be hungry no more’ (p.10). It’s all quite right and natural that the hungry should be fed.
In 1993, Ladybird produced an updated version, retold by Joan Stimson and illustrated by Mike Gordon. The setting is still the traditional fairy tale time and place, but the illustrations are cartoon-like and more humorous, with a fat ginger cat, not mentioned in the words, getting into mischief in the pictures. The girl, not ‘good’ or ‘pious’, is still poor and hungry, but this seems to be passed over a little more lightly and perhaps seems a little more temporary: ‘one day they had nothing left to eat at all’ (p.2). There is an emphasis placed on the ‘kind voice’ (pp.1-3) of the benefactor and the girl and her mother ‘could hardly believe how lucky they were’ (p.11). Food is less an automatic right but a charitable gift. This seems appropriate for a time when the welfare state was being questioned and squeezed.
Front Covers for Ladybird books 1971 and 1993
The Oxford Reading Tree
The Magic Porridge Pot by Margaret McAllister appeared as a slightly longer chapter book in the Oxford Reading Tree series in 2002. The setting is modern-day and features a group of ethnically diverse children who seem to live in an informal foster home with Mrs Molly. Times are tough and there isn’t always a lot to go round, although Mrs Molly does her best. One day, one of the children finds an old woman in the snow and brings her home and the family share with her as best they can and she leaves them the magic pot to thank them. This pot is a little different, as it makes not just boring old porridge but all sorts of baked goods, such as crumpets, muffins, teacakes, sticky buns and birthday cake.
The ‘crisis’ occurs when Paul, ‘who was always hungry’ before he came to live with Mrs Molly, picks up the porridge pot to try and wish for cherries and drops it. It breaks into pieces – but reconstitutes itself into four different porridge pots, all supplying whatever the children want. Although the story introduces a ‘moral’ element - the pot is a reward for the children’s good behaviour - Paul’s actions are not portrayed as greedy and are not punished. The author sets out her views in the afterword: ‘I wish I had a magic porridge pot to feed all the hungry people in the world’ (p.32). The acknowledgement that there are hungry children in Britain and elsewhere today is frank and the desire that they should have all the good things in life that others enjoy is sincere – although it seems we have to rely on ‘kind, warm people like Mrs Molly’ to provide for them (p.32).
Front cover of The Magic Porridge Pot by Margaret McAllister
Front Cover of The Magic Pudding
Pot by Kay Woodward
Hopscotch Twisty Tales
The Magic Pudding Pot by Kay Woodward was published as a Hopscotch Twisty Tale in 2016. In this story, hunger is not the focus. The story concerns a girl and her mother ‘who ate nothing but vegetables’ (p.3). The girl buys the magic pot from the supermarket when the old saucepan breaks – there’s certainly no hint of due reward for being ‘good’ here. The pot produces a range of (unhealthy) puddings which the girl enjoys although her mother does not. One day, the girl is so full that she falls asleep and does not stop the pot, which fills the town with chocolate pudding. This is presented as quite an inconvenience. The girl decides that she is tired of pudding and opts for some healthy vegetables instead. The concerns of this story are obviously quite different to previous versions. This author is not worried about her character having too little food, but rather too much, or at least too much of the wrong sort. This clearly reflects contemporary concerns about growing childhood obesity and the need to promote healthy eating.
Marina Warner wrote ‘a story is an archive, packed with history… a fairy tale bears the marks of the people who told it over the years, of their lives and struggles’ (Warner, 2014, p.77). Even in a story as simple as this one, with words chosen for easy reading, it seems that holds true. Many of these authors are concerned about hunger – and how it should be addressed, albeit that the only solutions on offer come through magic. Sometimes the child ‘deserves’ to have her hunger satiated because she is good and pious, sometimes her benefactor is the good and pious one, sometimes it seems that satiety is after all a basic right. In most of these books, an over-abundance of food is a joyous thing, but the ‘twisted tale’ raises newer concerns about the impact of eating too many sugary treats. This story will continue to be told in new ways as the relationship between food and society continues to evolve.
Picture Credits
Illustration by Otto Ubbelohde to the fairy tale Sweet Porridge,(1909) Wikimedia Commons
Front cover of The Magic Porridge Pot by Vera Southgate (1971)
Front cover of The Magic Porridge Pot by Joan Stimson (1993)
Front cover of The Magic Pudding Pot by Kay Woodward and Sheena Dempsey (2016)
References
Crane, L (ed) (1914) Household Stories from the Collection of the Bros. Grimm, illus. W. Crane, London: MacMillan
Grimm, The Brothers (1853) German Popular Tales and Household Stories, Volume 2, ,illus. E. Weinert, (New York: C.S.Francis and Co.
Hunt, M (ed) (1884) Grimm’s Household Tales, Volume 2, London: George Bell and Sons.
McAllister, M. (2002) The Magic Porridge Pot, illus Peter Utton, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Pullman, P. (2012) Grimm Tales: For Young and Old, London: Penguin
Southgate, V. (1971) The Magic Porridge Pot, illus. Robert Lumley, Loughborough: Wills and Hepworth.
Taylor, E. (ed) (c,1889) German Popular Stories with Illustrations after the Original Designs of George Cruikshank, London: John Camden Heath.
Warner, M. (2014) A Short History of Fairy Tale, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Woodward, K. (2016) The Magic Pudding Pot, illus. Sheena Dempsey, London: Franklin Watts
Add comment
Comments