Sweet Porridge, often known in English under the title of The Magic Porridge Pot, is a folkloric German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 recorded by the Brothers Grimm

Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...

, as tale number 103 in Grimm's Fairy Tales

Grimm's Fairy Tales

Children's and Household Tales is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales .-Composition:...

, in the 19th century. It is Aarne-Thompson type 565, the magic mill. Other tales of this type include Why the Sea Is Salt

Why the Sea Is Salt

Why the Sea Is Salt is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in their Norske Folkeeventyr. Andrew Lang included it in The Blue Fairy Book ....

and The Water Mother

The Water Mother

The Water Mother is a Chinese fairy tale collected by Wolfram Eberhard in Folktales of China. It does not exist in early text, although the cult of the Water Mother existed from the time of the Sung dynasty.It is Aarne-Thompson type 565...

.

Content

There was a poor but good little girl who lived alone with her mother, and they no longer had anything to eat. So the child went into the forest, and there an aged woman met her who was aware of her sorrow, and presented her with a little pot, which when she said, "Cook, little pot, cook," would cook good, sweet porridge, and when she said, "Stop, little pot," it ceased to cook. The girl took the pot home to her mother, and now they were freed from their poverty and hunger, and ate sweet porridge as often as they chose. Once on a time when the girl had gone out, her mother said, "Cook, little pot, cook." And it did cook and she ate until she was satisfied, and then she wanted the pot to stop cooking, but did not know the word. So it went on cooking and the porridge rose over the edge, and still it cooked on until the kitchen and 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, and there was the greatest distress, but no one knew how to stop it. At last when only one single house remained, the child came home and just said, "Stop, little pot," and it stopped and gave up cooking, and whosoever wished to return to the town had to eat their way back.

See also

• The Sorcerer's Apprentice
  The Sorcerer's Apprentice
  The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of a poem by Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling, written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.-Story:...
  
  
• The Master and His Pupil
  The Master and His Pupil
  The Master and His Pupil is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in his English Fairy Tales.-Synopsis:A learned man had a book in which he had the knowledge to control demons. His foolish pupil one day found it open and read a spell from it. Beezlebub appeared and demanded a task from...
  
  
• Strega Nona
  Strega Nona
  Strega Nona is an original children's book written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola about an elderly lady who helps her fellow villagers out with their troubles, most notably by curing headaches, helping single women find husbands, and ridding people of warts...
  
  

External links

• Sweet Porridge
• SurLaLune Fairy Tale site, Sweet Porridge