I am busy practicing and memorizing the new puppet show for the first playgroup of the new cycle (late winter). I am trying to incorporate the techniques we learned during Devana‘s storytelling workshop last month, which I’ll try and list at the bottom of this post.
We’ll be telling the simple tale, The Porridge Pot.
Here’s the version we’ll be using.
Once upon a time not very long ag o and not very far away, there was a poor but good little girl who lived alone with her mother, and they no longer had anything to eat. So the mother sent the girl in to the forest to pick some berries to bring home.
There, she met an aged woman. Despite the little girl’s own hunger she shared what she had gathered with the woman, and told the woman how poor and hungry the people of her village were.
The woman, who was aware of the little girl’s sorrow, presented her with a little pot. She told the girl when she was hungry she must say, “Cook, little pot, cook.†And when she was finished eating she must say, “Stop, little pot, stop†and it would cease to cook.
The girl took the pot home to her mother, and they were freed from their poverty and hunger, and ate sweet porridge as often as they chose. One day the girl had to go out. She reminded her mother of the words she needed to use before leaving.
While the girl was gone the mother began to get hungry, so she said, “Cook, little pot, cook†and it did cook and she ate till she was satisfied. Then she wanted the pot to stop cooking, but could not remember the words to use.
So the little pot went on cooking and cooking until the porridge rose over the edge. Still it cooked on, until the kitchen and the whole house were full, and then the next house, and then the whole street, just as if it wanted to satisfy the hunger of the whole world.
There was the greatest distress, but no one knew how to stop the little pot from cooking. At last, when only one single house remained, the girl came home and said, “Stop, little pot, stop†and it stopped and gave up cooking.
Whosoever wished to return to the town had to eat his way back.
And if things have not changed they are still the same today.
At the Waldorf Storytelling Workshop.