The Magic Porridge Pot

Once there was a good little girl who lived alone with her mother in a small house in a little village near a big forest. They were poor and had nothing left to eat. One day the little girl went into the forest to look for mushrooms for dinner, and met an old woman who gave her a little cooking pot. The old woman told the girl that it was a magic pot that would cook porridge whenever it heard the words 'cook, little pot'. When there was enough porridge in the pot, the words 'enough, little pot' would make the pot stop cooking porridge.

The little girl took the magic pot home. She and her mother were no longer hungry because they ate porridge as often as they wished.

One day the little girl went out for the day to visit her grandmother in the next town. When she had gone her mother decided she wanted a bowl of porridge. She said, 'Cook, little pot' and the pot started to cook porridge. The pot filled with porridge and the woman wanted to stop it cooking any more, but she had forgotten the words.

She said, 'No more now little pot' but it kept making porridge. She said, 'That's it, little pot, stop.' But the porridge started to overflow from the pot and spill onto the stove. 'Stop it!' she cried, but the porridge overflowed onto the floor and filled the kitchen. It poured out into the street and into the next house. Then it poured through every street in the town and no one knew how to stop it. People came with buckets and pots to scoop up the porridge but as fast as they did, more porridge filled the streets.

At last the little girl came back into town and shouted 'Enough little pot!' and the pot stopped cooking. But anyone who wanted to get across the town that day had to eat their way