Storytelling Starters ~ An Easter Gift
My Easter gift is an engaging Russian story-rhyme that I’m calling The Easter Egg. I hope you’ll like it and, between now and Easter, maybe share it with someone else. For me, it brings back some favourite memories.
For several years after it re-opened to the public, I was a kind of storyteller-in-residence at Somerset House on the Strand in London. At holiday-times, I’d do storytelling sessions on all kinds of themes. One theme was Somerset House itself: it abounds in historical tales. Another theme was gold and silver: Somerset House became the home of the Gilbert Collection of gold and silver treasures before this was moved to the V & A. Other themes were provided by the special big art exhibitions that were mounted at Somerset House. One I particularly remember was of Treasures from Russia. It gave me the reason and prompt for researching a repertoire of Russian tales that could relate to some of the marvellous objects that were on show.
Rare and beautiful egg-shaped boxes came up in several of these connections. So I was delighted when I succeeded in finding a Russian egg story to put in my rattle-bag of tales for telling at Somerset House.
Here it is. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you exactly where I originally found it. No doubt in some old volume of Russian traditional tales. Which one exactly I don’t remember. (Note to self: ALWAYS keep a note of where you find a story. Years later, you’ll kick yourself if you don’t because by then you’ll have forgotten.)
The Easter Egg
This is a story about a little Russian girl who lived with her father and mother right next to her grandmother’s farm.
This little girl would often help her granny by feeding the animals or collecting the new-laid eggs.
One day just before Easter, her mother was making bread in the kitchen.
Her father, who was the local priest, was in church preparing his Easter service.
Then something terrible happened.
The story:
In grandmother’s shed
Lived a speckled hen.
On the day of my story, it laid an egg.
The egg rolled down
From shelf to shelf
Until in the end it found itself
In a little keg made of aspen wood
In a dusty corner where the donkey stood.
A mouse ran by too near the keg,
Wiggled his tail, and broke the egg!
At this great catastrophe
The farmyard donkey began to cry,
The fat old pig let out a sigh,
A startled chicken rose to fly;
The gateposts shrieked,
All doors creaked,
The milk-churn leaked;
And the priest’s daughter,
The little girl in my story,
Carrying water
Broke her bucket.
All in a dither
She came to her mother
And said:
Mother, mother, have you heard the news?
In grandmother’s yard
Lives a speckled hen.
Today, she laid an egg;
The egg rolled down
From shelf to shelf
Until in the end it found itself
In a little keg made of aspen wood
In the dusty corner where the donkey stood.
A mouse ran by too near the keg,
Wiggled his tail, and broke the egg!
At this great catastrophe
The little donkey began to cry,
The fat old pig let out a sigh,
A startled chicken rose to fly;
The gateposts shrieked,
All doors creaked,
The milk-churn leaked;
And I, the priest’s daughter,
The little girl in this story,
Carrying water,
Broke my bucket.
When she heard this story,
The wife of the priest
Dropped her yeast
And seeing her dough fall to the floor
She headed straight
Through the churchyard gate
And said:
Husband, husband, have you heard the news?
In grandmother’s shed
Lives a speckled hen.
Today, she laid an egg;
The egg rolled down
From shelf to shelf
Until in the end it found itself
In a little keg made of aspen wood
In the dusty corner where the donkey stood.
A mouse ran by too near the keg,
Wiggled his tail, and broke the egg!
At this great catastrophe
The little donkey
Began to cry,
The fat old pig let out a sigh,
A startled chicken rose to fly
The gateposts shrieked,
All doors creaked,
The milk-churn leaked;
And our dear daughter,
The little girl in this story,
Carrying water,
Broke her bucket.
And I, your wife,
Dropped my dough to the floor!
When he heard all this,
The holy priest with a terrible look
Tore the pages out of his book
And scattered them on the floor.
And do you know what happened then?
The wind came and blew the pages across the farmyard into the river
And the river-waters carried them off
And that’s why I can’t tell you any more of the story.
So what’s to be done with The Easter Egg?
Well, read it, learn it, tell it?
(This is one occasion when you’d have to learn it pretty much exactly as it is. But it’s worth it. Good sound effects will help your listeners to learn it too as you do it.)
Or read it aloud to someone else?
(You could employ sound effects here just the same as if you’re telling it.)
Or just simply enjoy.
P.S. The photos this week are of some of the ‘eggs’ in my house. As you’ll have noticed, they include one curiosity – a White House egg given to my husband by an aide to Bill Clinton when the latter was President.
Happy Easter – and please come back for my next series on Storytelling Games
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Links: You can also read occasional blogs by me on the Early Learning HQ website. Early Learning HQ offers hundreds of free downloadable foundation stage and key stage one teaching resources. It also has an extensive blog section with contributions from a wide range of early years professionals, consultants and storytellers. For details of the Society for Storytelling, click here.
Tags: learning a story, Russian tale, Showing objects, Somerset House, The Easter Egg