Storytelling Starters ~ Wintering Out 3
Two more Seasonal Tales today – seasonal because of the star in the Christmas story and because I always think stars look especially wonderful at this dark time of the year. Today’s Seasonal Tales are two different versions of the Star Apple story.
The Star Apple Story ~ what you need
The Star Apple Story is a great one for telling at a family event or in school. All you need as props are an apple and a knife to cut it. As long as you adapt the story appropriately, the apple can be red or green as you choose and in the version of the story that appears first below (I posted it in this Blog last year, but it’s worth repeating) the apple should also have a good strong bit of stem.
Star Apple ~ Version 1
Once there was a little boy who was very excited in the days before Christmas. Was it going to snow? Would Father Christmas come to his house? What would Father Christmas bring him?
The little boy was so excited, he didn’t know what to do. ‘What shall I do?’ he kept asking. The Christmas decorations were already up. His old toys bored him and he’d tidied his room as his mother had suggested. ‘What shall I do?’ he asked again.
That’s when his mother said something weird. ‘Why don’t you look round the house and the garden and see if you can find a little green house with no windows but a chimney on top and a star inside?’
‘UH?’ The little boy was mystified. He looked round the house. He looked round the garden. Nowhere at all could he find a little green house with no windows but a chimney on top, and a star inside. ‘Mum,’ the boy said, ‘I can’t find it.’
Then his mother suggested he call on his friend next door: the two of them together could go down the street and see if they could find it. So that’s what the little boy did. He and his friend looked at all the houses. They could see some that had stars inside on top of their Christmas trees and some of the houses had chimneys. But none of the houses had no windows and none of them were green.
The little boy went back to his own house.‘Mum,’ he said, ‘we didn’t find it.’
‘Well, let me show you,’ said his mother, reaching a little green apple out of the fruit bowl.
‘See,’ she said. ‘here’s a little green house. And look,’ she said, wiggling the stalk on the top, ‘this little green house has a chimney. But it hasn’t got any windows, has it?’
‘No,’ said the boys. ‘And where’s the star?’
‘Just watch,’ the little boy’s mother replied as she picked up a knife and cut the apple cross-wise across the middle. When she opened it up, the little boy and his friend could see that it had a beautiful star inside.
‘And now,’ said the mother, ‘you can eat the apple, half each.’
‘And can we do the story again every day until Christmas?’
‘Yes,’ said the mother, ‘we can. And tonight when it’s dark we’ll go out on the street and see if we can see the stars in the sky.’’
Star Apple ~ Version 2
The little apple tree lived in a cluster of trees. One of the trees was a great big oak tree and when she looked up at the sky one night, she saw a million bright sparkling stars. They seemed to be hanging from the oak tree’s branches.
‘How I wish I could have stars on my branches too,’ the little apple tree cried.
The next moment, the Star Fairy appeared. ‘You shall surely have stars one day,’ she smiled, the bells that hung from her basket tinkling as she shook it about. ‘Just be patient and concentrate on growing big and strong and in good time you too shall have stars.’
The little apple tree felt very happy at hearing the Star Fairy’s promise. After that, she concentrated on growing up big and strong. But it wasn’t always easy. Sometimes there wasn’t enough rain to keep her roots well-watered. Sometimes there were heavy winds that bent her branches and trunk.
But one day when the apple tree had grown big and strong, she noticed with delight that her branches were covered with beautiful blossoms. Inside each blossom it looked like there was some kind of a star and this made her feel very happy. Although the stars were not very obvious, she felt the Star Fairy had kept her promise.
Unfortunately, not long after, all the blossoms fell off. For a short while they looked lovely down on the ground. But then they went brown and withered away. Once again, the apple tree was left longing to have her own stars.
Before very long, something new and marvellous happened. Tiny little apples began to form on the apple tree’s branches where the blossoms had been. When these apples had grown to be big and ripe, the Star Fairy suddenly appeared with her basket, her silver bells tinkling from the handle. The basket seemed to shine from inside.
‘Here are your stars,’ the Star Fairy said. ‘Now that you’ve grown big and strong, I shall put them inside your apples.’
And that’s what the Star Fairy did. She put the stars from her basket inside the apple tree’s fruit and the stars are still there today. So when you cut into an apple (and be sure you cut it cross-wise, not downwards) you will find the star inside. The star is where the apple’s seeds are and it’s from the seeds of the apple that new little apple trees grow.
Tags: apples, knife, Star Apple, stars, trees