Title: “The Soup Stone”
Bibliographic
Information:
Ride with the
Sun: An Anthology of Folk-Tales and Stories from the U.N.
Ed.
Harold Courlander. London: Edmund Ward Ltd., 1957.
Ethnic Origin: Belgian
Running Time: 6 min.
Power Centers:
Fear/selfishness/imagined
poverty of the villagers- hiding their food.
Wonder at making
soup from a stone- disarming nature of the soldier.
(The family is
“tricked,” but they willingly contribute to soup and get to share in the
rewards)
Characters: Soldier; Family in village
Scenes:
1-
Hungry
soldier walking home, comes to village.
2-
Villagers
turn away the soldier when he asks for food.
3-
Soldier
decides to make Stone Soup.
4-
Family
contributes food to make soup.
5-
Soldiers
gives stone to family and leaves town
Synopsis:
A very tired and
hungry soldier is walking home from the war. He stops at a village to find food
and shelter for the night, but no one will offer any help. Being a resourceful man,
the soldier teaches a family to make stone soup. He claims to have a magical
soup stone and asks only for a pot full of water in which to cook. As the
“soup” cooks, he mentions various seasonings and vegetables that would make the
soup taste good. The family finds that they indeed have a few things to add to
the pot. Finally they add some meat, rabbits freshly caught, and there is
enough food to feed everyone. The soldier graciously gives the woman the soup
stone to repay her kindness in sharing her table. As he travels to the next
village the next day, he finds another soup stone along the road.
Rhymes,
Special Phrases, Flavor:
The soldier himself creates the special flavor or rhythms of the story. His
creation of the soup is like a magic trick, and his patter is what distracts
the observers of the trick from noticing that they are the ones making the
soup.
Audience: 3-5 years old
Why is this
story appropriate for audience?
Erik
Erikson and Maslow agree that young children need their primary physical needs
such as food and shelter satisfied before they can progress. This story is
about how an adult seeks to satisfy these needs. It is important to children to
learn to share. In the story, the villagers do not want to share, but in the
end they all benefit from sharing their food. Erikson notes that 3-6 year olds
are beginning to develop a sense of social responsibility. Sharing our
resources is one way to be responsible for each other. Charlotte Huck and
Erikson both emphasize the importance of imagination at this age. The idea of a
traveling soldier or even of a village may be new to some children at this age.
The idea of soup that comes from stones requires even more imagination. I think
it is important for kids to hear about cooking and how food is made. If I were
telling this story to my own kids, we certainly would follow the recipe along
with the story (except maybe no rabbit). Listing vegetables in the story is a
good way to talk about food.
Other variants:
Stone Soup: An
Old Tale. Told and
pictured by Marcia Brown. New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons,
1947. (French)
“The Old Woman
and the Tramp.” Clever Cooks: A Concoction of Stories, Charms, Recipes and
Riddles. Compiled by Ellin Greene. Illus. By Trina S.
Hyman. New York: Lothrop, Lee, Shepherd and Co., 1973. (Swedish)
“Boiled Axe.” Baba
Yaga’s Geese, and Other Russian Stories. Transl. and adapted by Bonnie
Carey.
Illus. by Guy Fleming. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973. (Russian)
Comparison:
Marcia Brown’s Stone Soup was originally
the story I wanted to tell. It is the one I grew up hearing and I like it best.
However, properly told, the story runs about 10 minutes or more. I decided to
tell “The Soup Stone” because it is easier to tell more succinctly. In Stone
Soup I like the images of the peasants hiding all their food: putting
carrots under red quilts, and lowering jugs of milk down into wells. And then
the repetition of retrieving the food from the hiding places. I like the
feasting and dancing after the soup is ready.
One
detail I like about “The Soup Stone” is that the soldiers already has the stone
in his pocket, and he picks up a new one as he leaves town. Clearly he earns
his food by teaching people how to share … their food with him. He has his act down
pat. The villagers in this version seem to be more truly in need than those in Stone
Soup. The former have less to add than the latter who have aprons full of
carrots. The soldiers teaches the family to make the most of what they already
have.
“The
Old Woman and the Tramp” is a very different story in tone. A traveler wishes
to stay the night at an old woman’s house, and she is very reluctant to offer
any hospitality. I don’t find this story to be appropriate for the younger
audience because I am uncomfortable with the dynamic that exists between the
pushy tramp and the stingy woman. He tricks her into feeding him- there is no
larger lesson of sharing food with a community or family. The story is quite
funny for an older audience. The tramp has quirky little rhymes and sayings:
“He who far and wide does roam sees many things not know at home; and he who
many things has seen has wits about him and senses keen.” The pattern of adding
ingredients to the pot is similar to Stone Soup and even shares some of the
same phrases. For example when the tramp and the soldiers respectively wish
they had barley and milk to add to the soup, they both claim to have made soup
like this for the king. The tramp and the soldiers are both given fine beds to
sleep in, and both tales end with “Such men don’t grow on every bush.”
The
Russian version is most similar to the story of the tramp. It is curt and
amusing, featuring an impatient traveler and a cranky, half-deaf old woman. In
this story the traveler makes kasha from an axe. This version has the funniest
ending: after they have eaten all the kasha, the old woman asks who will now
eat the axe. The traveler pokes the axe with his fork and declares that it
isn’t quite done, and must be boiled another day.