Aug 30, 2007

“The Little Red Hen? is an English fable based upon repetition, like many of the other stories we’ve done. In this case, the barnyard animals learn the importance of industriousness – that only those who share the labors also share the rewards.

We chose this story in part because Zephyr came back to us...

Aug 23, 2007

Like the familiar tales of “Rumpelstiltskin? and “Lohengrin?, the Nigerian animal yarn called “The Hippopotamus and the Tortoise? deals with a character (the hippo) whose name is a secret, and another character (the Tortoise) who successfully guesses it.  The consequences of the successful guess vary from story to...

Aug 14, 2007

There's nothing wrong with trusting your friends, as long as you don't entrust them with responsibilities they can't handle. A certain king learns that lesson the hard way when he sticks his neck out a bit too far in "The Foolish Friend", a folktale from India.

But rather than just tell what happens from beginning to...

Aug 9, 2007

Charlotte Brown was a young woman who married Capt. Nelson Cole Haley, skipper of the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan out of Mystic, CT. No doubt about that. But there is a rumor that before she married Capt. Haley, she was ditched at the altar by another man who then heaved ho aboard a whaling ship; and because of that,...

Aug 2, 2007

Three wishes. Three oranges. Three musketeers. Three brothers. Three bears. Three little pigs. And three goats, of course. The pivotal number in folktales and fairy tales is back again with a starring role in "The Three Billy Goats", otherwise known as the "Billy Goats Gruff", a tale that seems to have originated...