INLS 121:
Storytelling
October 1, 2001
Bibliographic Information:
“The Elves and the
Shoemaker.” In Famous Fairy Tales, Favorite Stories from the Land of
Once-Upon-a-Time. Racine, Wisconsin: Western, 1971.
Brothers Grimm. “The Elves and the Shoemaker.” In The Random House Book of Fairy Tales. Adapted Amy Ehrlich. New York:
Random House, 1985.
Windham, Sophie. “The Elves and the Shoemaker.” In Read Me A Story, A Child’s Book of Favorite
Tales. New York: Scholastic, 1991.
I used a combination of all three versions.
Ethnic Origin:
German, Grimm’s fairy tales
Running Time: 5 minutes
Power
Centers: The shoemaker’s trust that everything is going to work out. He trusts
in his God and is a good man so everything is going to work out. The second power center is the determination
to pay the little men back for their help. I want the children to see that you
do not get something for nothing and the gratitude that the shoemaker and his
wife feel for the little men.
Characters:
Shoemaker, wife, 2 little men, and the customers
Scenes:
Shoemaker cutting out leather. Shoemaker finds the shoes. Shoemaker and
wife hide to find out who is making the shoes. The elves come in and find the
clothes and shoes.
Synopsis:
Poor Shoemaker has only enough leather for one more pair of shoes. He wakes
in the next morning to find that someone has made the shoes for him. This goes on for several months. He becomes rich.
The shoemaker and his wife decide to stay up and find out who has been making
the shoes. They find out that two naked
little men have been making the shoes. To pay them back the shoemaker and his
wife make them little shoes and clothes.
The shoemaker and his wife hide again to see the little men’s
reactions. The little men celebrate and
dance with joy of their new clothes and run out. The shoemaker never sees them again, but the shoemaker and his
wife live happily ever after.
Rhymes/Special Phrases/“Flavor”:
Now we’re
dressed so fine and neat, Why cobble more for other’s feet?
Naked as a peeled onion!
Audience:
This story is for 3-6 year olds. I chose this story
because I think that preschoolers right now need a “happily ever after story”
especially with all the tragedy that has been on television with the terrorist
attack. I also wanted to show them a
story where good things happen to good people.
The shoemaker and his wife continue to work hard even with their good
fortune and they find away to pay the elves back. I want to show the children that the shoemaker and his wife are
grateful for the elves help and are not disappointed that the elves do not come
back again.
Bibliographic information on other
versions/variants:
Climo, Shirley. “The Very Old Woman and the Piskey.” In Magic & Mischief, Tales from Cornwall. New York:
Clarion Books, 1998.
“The Elves and the
Shoemaker.” In Favorite Folk Tales, Fairy
Tales, and Legends Told Under the Green Umbrella. Selected by Literature Committee of the Association for Childhood
Education International. New York: MacMillan, 1930
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm
Grimm. “The Elves, First Story.” In Grimms’ Tales for Young and Old, The
Complete Stories. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
1977.
Plume, Ilse. The Shoemaker and the Elves. New York:
Harcove Brace Jovanovich, 1991.
Rockwell, Anne. “The Shoemaker and the Elves.” In The Three Bears & 15 Other Stories. New York:
Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1975.
Sideman, Belle Becker,
ed. “The Shoemaker and the Elves.” In The World’s Best Fairy Tales. Old German Tale, Collection of Kate Douglas
Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith.
Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s
Digest Association, 1967.
Brief comparison of all versions/variants in terms
of language, rhythm, “tellability,” “flavor,” content, etc.
Climo’s variant, “The Very Old Woman and the Piskey”
which is set in Cornwell. It has the same basic premise, but in this case an
old farm couple get help with the farm work instead of shoes. The biggest difference is in attitude. The
old woman wants to pay them back, but the old man is worried about scaring them
off and then he would have to do the work again. The old woman leaves food for the piskey against the wishes of
her husband and that makes the Piskey work harder.
The woman makes clothes for the Piskey and the
Piskey leaves and never comes back. The old man instead of being grateful for
the work the Piskey has done is angry.
The man never spoke to the old woman again except to say I told you so every
night. The story does not flow well and
it certainly doesn’t portray a moral lesson that I would want to teach.
The version that is most different from the original
is Isle Plume’s “The Shoemaker and the Elves.” It takes place in Italy and has
an additional character, a cat. It deals more with the despair of the shoemaker
having lost his fortune. The elves in
the story also have clothes on. This to me takes away the dramatic affect of
giving them clothes. It also makes you
wonder why they left just because they had new clothes. The setting changes
were fine and it gave it flavor, but the change in the major plot took away power
from the original story.
Rockwell’s version stuck close to the Grimm version,
but it does not have any emotional overtones.
It mainly just recites the story and doesn’t have any pizzazz.
The Famous Fairy Tales, version of “The Elves
and the Shoemaker” is my favorite and is from a book I have had since
childhood. It uses very expressive language and gives a lot of good detail. It also deals with his emotions and surprise
of finding the shoes made very well. This version also deals with the spiritual
aspect of the shoemaker putting his cares to heaven.
I pulled my song from the, Random House Book of
Fairy Tales. This version handled
the ending better than Famous Fairy
Tales and had better rhythm. The story didn’t have much emotion in the
beginning, but at the end it expressed emotions and described the elves better
than the other versions. The Read Me A Story, A Child’s Book of Favorite
Tales had good tellability and I liked some of the language which I pulled
out for my story. It had some good details, but it didn’t dwell much on the
emotions.
The World’s Best Fairy Tales was very close to Random
House’s version, but it lacked tellability and seemed bland in comparison to others.
It does deal with the spirituality, but it doesn’t really show any
emotions. It just doesn’t have any
warmth. Favorite Folk Tales, Fairy Tales, and Legends Told Under the Green
Umbrella’s version dwells on the spirituality and the fact that the
shoemaker is not worried about the future.
It does a good job of handling the emotions and showing gratitude. The
language would be hard for young children to understand since some of the
phrases are not in common usage.
Grimm’s, “The Elves, First Story,” talked more about
the shoemaker’s being a good and Godly man. The tellability is hard; it doesn’t
seem to flow as well for telling and is a bare bones version. This could be that it’s a more direct
translation. The song that they sing doesn’t rhyme like other versions. I think
that the translator probably translated the content accurately, but it probably
lost some of the flowing language in the translation.