Storytelling is our first true form of education. Before we had formal classrooms or even this ubiquitous thing we call school, there were stories and storytellers. These people, in their symbolic wisdom, taught us the value of wisdom and the value of the human spirit through legends, folktales, fairytales/fables, myths. We cannot underate the value of storytelling. Through it we learn a great deal about dealing with this ephemeral thing we call life.
WE'RE MORE ALIKE THAN YOU MIGHT THINK
MAGIC POT STORIES
When you examine fables,folklore, myths and legends from around the world; you discover that people are more alike than they are different. I have selected three Fables that come from vastly different parts of the world to illustrate my point. These fables are considered "Magic Pot Stories" The first tale comes from Jamaica. The second tale is from Africa; it is an Anansi The Spider Tale. This story is adapted by George Reed (2005) from his site http://fanucci.org/2005/anansi-and-the-magic-pot/ And the third tale is from Russia from the site http://kids.time.net.my/reading/index.cfm?archive=14. And the final tale as Italian roots, it is known as "Baba Yaga"
CHARLOTTE AND THE MAGIC CALABASH
Charlotte was a very stingy and selfish man. One day as he was walking through the forest, a mysterious old woman appeared to him. He was frightened but managed to ask her, “Who are you? What do you want?” The woman did not answer him, but she did say. “There is a faminie in your land, and people are starving everywhere, are they not?” This was true. This had been a terrible harvest season; nothing grew, and the people were hungry. “Yes, this is so, old woman.” Charlotte said, still quite afraid. “Extend your hand,” the woman said. Charlotte was skeptical, but he was curious; so he did as the woman asked. “Take this” she said. “It is just a calabash” Charlottle said, expecting much more. “No.” said the old woman. “This is no ordinary calabash. If you use it properly, it will feed your entire village”. “This little thing?” Charlotte asked suspiciously. “Yes.” the old woman said. “Simply set it down and say these words:
“Calabash, Calabash, food time come. Get some food and give me some!”
To Charlotte amazement, the calabsh began to bring forth food. “This is a magic calabash!” He cried
Charlotte began eating everything that poured out. He ate greedily until he was beyonf full. He slumped down on a tree trunk while the food continued to gush out. “Calabash, Stop!” said the witch. And instantly the food stopped flowing. “Remember, you must say ‘calabash, stop’ when you have eaten your fill.” The old woman warned. “Now take it to your people and feed them.” Charlotte picked up the calabsh, but when he looked up to thank the woman, she was gone. Charlotte immediately ran home. But as was ran, he began to think his greedy thoughts. “Why should I tell anyone about this? I can have it all to my self. After all, I discovered it” He took the calabsh home and set it on his kitchen table. Everyday, Charlotte walked through the village pretending that he was in as bad a shape as everyone else. And every night he would go home and call:
“Calabash, Calabash food time come. Get some food and give me some!”
And he would eat hardy, and eventually fall asleep. Soon people started to notice that Charlotte was getting fatter as they were getting thinner. “How can this be, the villagers thought, we are in the midst of a famine, yet Charlotte is getting fatter.” Soon the villagers began to talk and become quite suspicious.
One night, as Charlotte was heading home some children followed him. They stayed outside and watched Charlotte through the window. At first, there was nothing to see. But very shortly, Charlotte walked to the kitchen table where the calabash sat and said:
“Calabash, Calabash food time come. Get some food and give me some!”
And as usual porridge poured forth. The children looked at each other in amazement. They quickly ran back to the village and told everyone what they had seen. “So that’s it!” cried one of the village elders. “He has a magic calabash!” “All you have to do,” said one of the boys who spied on Charlotte, “is say these words: . “Calabash, Calabash food time come. Get some food and give me some!”
The next day villagers grabbed their pots, pans, and spoons and ran to Charlotte’s house. They hid in the bushes and waited for him to leave as he did each morning. No sooner had the door closed behind him than the villagers burst in and found the magic calabash.
“Calabash, Calabash food time come. Get some food and give me some!”
They all called. And sure enough the calabash spewed forth pouridge like never before. The villagers ate their fill and then filled their pots and pands to the brim. Leaving the calabash where it was, they all marched back to their homes. But unfortunately, they did not know to tell the calabash to stop. And so it spilled over unto the table and then the floor. The poriged began to fill up the entire house. It poured through the windows and weighed heavily against the door. After several hours, Charlotte returned to find porridge spilling everywhere. He opened up the door, and a flood of porridge spilled out and engulfed him. He struggle to keep his head above the porridge and say the magic command, “Calabash, S…, Calaba, Calaaagurgle, gurgle-uhl! But Charlotte was unable to get the words out. He drowned in the porridge and the stew poured out of the yard and into the forest carrying the drowned charlotte with it.
Adapted from a tale told to the author in Chicago by Jamacian born medical student Peter Hurlock, from a childhood memory. 2008.
"Anansi and the Magic Pot"
A very long time ago, in a land long swallowed by the angry oceans, there was a clever fellow named Anansi. Now some may say that Anansi was a man, whilst others hold that he was a Spider. In truth, he was one of the Elder, Spirit-folk who could take the form of either human or a creature of the world of which they were the principal member. I like to think that this is indeed the truth for who can name a spider of such amazing and ancient deeds?! None, I should think…
Not long after Anansi and his wife Marita has sailed through harsh storms across the Sea of Golden Eels, and settled on the great land of Sun and Plenty–very near the place we would today call Africa–Anansi had another of his famous adventures. You see, spiders are very curious by nature and tend to get themselves into every kind of difficulty. Even today you will find spiders creeping and sneaking into all sorts of unlikely places, but none could ever match Anansi! Just going down to the shore to collect shells for Marita could be an adventure for Anansi…
On the occasion of which I speak, Anansi’s wife Marita had become very angry because her husband was somewhat greedy and would sneak into the dinner pot to help himself before anyone else got there. This was very frustrating for Marita, because she had to cook twice as much so that everyone would get dinner. Even so, Anansi grew heavier and heavier and his family and friends grew thinner and thinner.
But Marita was clever and had a plan! She would not tell Anansi what was for dinner–he was especially bad about meat and beans–they were his favorite–and she would wait until he went out to collect sea shells and what not before she started cooking. This would have worked well enough, but Anansi could smell meat cooking a mile off, and snuck back to grab a snack. So…Anansi grew heavier…and his family and friends…grew thinner…
Marita was desperate for a way to solve her problem, so she went to visit the High Favah, who listened to her plight, nodding every once in a while. After she was done explaining, the High Favah cleared his mighty throat in a deafening roar and spoke to her.
” Woman. Take you this pouch of magic dust and sprinkle some into your cooking pot just before you put it on the fire. No one but you may serve out of the pot without paying the penalty. Now go away and let me sleep!”
Well, Marita was more than pleased at this and went home to fix dinner. Today she would test the magic powder by making meat and beans–Anansi’s favorite! At first she was nervous about putting the pot on the fire with the sparkling dust swirling in it, but it didn’t seem to do anything at all that strange, so she gave it a try. Nothing happened.
” Well,”she though,”that Favah isn’t so smart after all!”And she went about her chores.
Now Anansi was down near the yam hills when he smelled the heavenly fragrance of meat and beans cooking. His stomach growled a low greedy growl, as only his could, and he began to get hungry. But how could he sneak some early dinner without Marita catching him? Well Anansi was a very clever fellow and grabbed some tools from his shed.
” I’m going to fix that leaky cistern!”he announced as he trundled past Marita, who was busy with her chores. But did Anansi go anywhere _near_ the cistern? Not likely. Instead, he crept into the kitchen and lifted the lid of the cooking pot. Marita’s cooking had never before smelled so tasty and exotic! Well, being *very* hungry, Anansi thought he would just grab a quick handful of meat and beans and sneak out of the back window. The very instant he touched the meat, the pot developed a face and a mouth. And the mouth began to scream!
” HEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLPPPPPPP!”cried the pot. Anansi jerked his hand out of the pot quick, and the screaming stopped at once. Marita called out from the other room where she was folding socks. This took a long time as Anansi needed eight socks at a time.
” Whats going on in there?!”Anansi thought fast and called back.
” Nothing I stubbed my toe on the cistern!”
” Well be careful!”
” Yes dear one!”
Anansi could tell this was going to take a little more doing than he first had thought, so he took off his floppy had and ran his hands through his long curly hair–which was Anansi’s pride and joy. Then he got an idea! The hat would make a nice bowl, if he could shut that leering pot up for a bit. Then Anansi giggled at his own cleverness, for he took up a great jar of honey and shoved an immense spoon of it into the Pot’s mouth. Well the pot could not very well scream with a mouth full of honey and no way to swallow it. That’s how Anansi was able to scoop up a great mount of meat and beans into his hat.
Unfortunately…that was when Marita came into the kitchen, just as the pot spat out the honey and began to scream again. Well Anansi had no choice but to pull his hat back onto his head in order to hide his snack.
Marita saw the grinning face on the pot and fixed Anansi with a stare as only Marita could fix.”Have you been diddling in my dinner pot again?!”
Well Anansi was not generally a liar, but his wife looked *very* fierce and he decided to evade.”Do you _see_ any meat and beans out of the pot? All I did was lift the lid and the thing started yelling.”
Marita was still not pleased,”Mess with my pot again and *you’ll* be what’s cooking!”At that she stomped outside into the garden.
Just about now, Anansi realized that meat and beans, fresh off the fire are really *very* hot. And his head was now burning terribly, because he had taken a great hatfull of dinner. Out the window he fled, down to the stream, where he ripped off the hat and was startled at his reflection in the water. All of his beautiful, curly hair was burned clean off, and he was bald for life. And since that very day, no creature under the sun has ever seen a spider with hair, and Anansi’s family finally got dinner!
The Magic Porridge Pot
A Russian Tale
Once upon a time in a small village, there lived a little girl with her mother. Her father, a woodcutter, had just passed away. The mother and daughter were so poor that often they had to go to bed on an empty stomach. One day, they found that they had nothing left to eat. The little girl went to the forest to find some fruits. In the forest, she saw an old lady who was drowning. She saved the old lady who was very grateful to the little girl. The old lady asked her why she looked so sad. The girl replied that she was hungry and so was her mother.
Unknown to her, the old lady was actually a good witch. She gave her a little magic pot. The old lady said, "With this magic pot, you will never go hungry. All you have to say is, "Cook little pot, cook" and you will have porridge. When the pot is full, you must say, "Stop little pot, stop" and it will stop cooking."
The little girl thanked her and ran towards her home. She showed her mother the pot. At first her mother refused to believe her. But when the little girl said, "Cook little pot, cook", her mother was shocked to see the pot slowly getting filled with porridge. When the pot was filled, the little girl said, "Stop little pot, stop." So the mother and daughter never went hungry again.
One day, the little girl went to visit her friend. Her mother who was hungry decided to use the magic pot and said, "Cook little pot, cook." But when the pot was filled the mother could not remember the magic words to stop the pot from cooking. The porridge began to overflow from the pot and into the whole village!
When the little girl came home, she quickly said the magic words and so the porridge stopped flowing. The villagers had a busy time cleaning up their houses. But no one complained because the little girl shared the pot with everyone. No one went hungry in the village again.
BABA YAGA(To be posted soon)
