Sweet Porage

This is my retelling of the very short story „Der süße Brei“ from the Brothers Grimm collection „Kinder und Hausmärchen“.

The English spelling is „porridge“ but I prefer the Scottish spelling „porage“ because my favourite grandfather was Scottish!

There was once a little girl. She lived alone with her mother. They were very poor. One day they had nothing left in the house to eat. The girl went into the forest. There she met an old woman who already knew about all their troubles.  She showed the girl a pot.

„Take this pot. When you are hungry, say: ‚Pot, cook‘ and the pot will cook sweet porage for you. When you want the pot to stop cooking, just say: ‚Pot, stand‘ and the pot will stop cooking.“

The girl took the pot home to her mother. Whenever they were hungry they said: „Pot, cook“ and the pot cooked sweet porage. My, did it taste good! Mmm! They ate and ate until they could eat no more. Then the girl said, „Pot, stand“ and the pot stopped cooking. Now they were no longer poor and hungry and every day they ate their fill of the sweet porage.

One day the little girl went out. Her mother was alone at home. When mother got hungry, she said: „Pot, cook“ and the pot cooked sweet porage. She ate and ate until she could eat no more. But now she was full and she wanted to stop the pot cooking. How do you stop the pot cooking? She had forgotten the password!

„Pot, stop! Pot, don’t do that! Pot, no!“ But nothing worked and the pot kept on cooking and cooking until the porage spilled out over the side of the pot and onto the kitchen floor, until the whole kitchen was full of sweet porage, the whole house, the whole street, the whole town was full of the sweet porage and there was only one house left…Then the girl finally came home and said simply: „Pot, stand“ and the pot stopped cooking. Phew, just in time!

And if you want to go into town, you will have to eat your way through!