Contents

1) A LONG-NIGHT’S STORY: “KEEPING HOPE ALIVE”

2) A WINTER BLESSING FOR STORYTELLERS

1) A LONG-NIGHT’S STORY: “KEEPING HOPE ALIVE”

Here’s a story for the times when the darkness can seem unassailable. (And a blessing based on the story.)

Keeping Hope Alive

The great Jewish mystic known as the Baal Shem Tov had discovered four great holy secrets. In order to keep hope alive in the world, he went to a sacred place in the forest, built an ancient, special fire, said a holy prayer, and spoke the long-forgotten true pronunciation of the most holy name of God.

He built an ancient, special fire...

It was enough. Hope stayed alive for the next generation.

The Baal Shem Tov’s successor, though, did not know the true pronunciation of the most holy name of God. But, when the time came, he went to the place in the forest, built the fire, and spoke the prayer. It was enough. Hope stayed alive for the next generation.

In the next generation, the successor to the successor only knew enough to go to the sacred place in the forest and build the ancient fire. But it was enough; hope stayed alive.

In the following generation, the next successor could only go to the place in the forest and pray that this last, single secret would be enough. It was! Hope stayed alive.

But in the next generation, the final secret was lost. So the successor in this generation sat in his own armchair and told the story.

Just telling the story was enough. Hope stayed alive in the next generation – and the next and the next, as long as the story is told.

2) A WINTER BLESSING FOR STORYTELLERS

May you be blessed with stories of hope.

And may you be blessed to tell the stories – even in the winter darkness – that keep hope alive for those around you.

It was winter. The snow was on the ground, and the boy had to go out and haul in firewood on his sled. And when he gathered and loaded it up, he was so cold that he didn’t want to go right back home. He wanted to build a fire to warm himself first.

So, he scraped away some snow from the ground, and under the snow he discovered a golden key. He picked it up. He thought, “Where there is a key there must be a lock!” And so he went digging and digging. And he found an iron box.

He looked for a keyhole. He didn’t see one, but he kept looking. He found one so small he could barely notice it. Will the key fit?

He put the key in the key hole. It fit. He turned it.

And now we’ll have to wait for him to open it, to see what the treasures are, inside.

“Come and dine with me to-day,” said the Fox to the Crane.

“Thank you,” said the Crane; “I will do so with pleasure.”

But after the dinner she was as hungry as before. All that the Fox had offered her was some thin soup in a shallow plate. With her long, sharp bill it was as much as she could do to get a taste, while the Fox with his broad tongue quickly lapped it all up.

“Come and dine with me to-morrow,” said the Crane.

“Thank you,” said the Fox; “I will do so with pleasure.”

He went in great glee, but he came home sad. The Crane had offered him plenty of good food, but had served it in tall, narrow-necked bottles. With his broad tongue he could not get so much as a taste, while the Crane with her long, sharp bill easily reached and ate up the whole of it.

Below is Joseph Jacobs’ translation from Aesop (1894)

At one time the Fox and the Stork were on visiting terms and seemed very good friends. So the Fox invited the Stork to dinner, and for a joke put nothing before her but some soup in a very shallow dish. This the Fox could easily lap up, but the Stork could only wet the end of her long bill in it, and left the meal as hungry as when she began. “I am sorry,” said the Fox, “the soup is not to your liking.”

“Pray do not apologise,” said the Stork. “I hope you will return this visit, and come and dine with me soon.” So a day was appointed when the Fox should visit the Stork; but when they were seated at table all that was for their dinner was contained in a very long-necked jar with a narrow mouth, in which the Fox could not insert his snout, so all he could manage to do was to lick the outside of the jar.

“I will not apologise for the dinner,” said the Stork: “One bad turn deserves another.”

Jacobs tells this as about “tit-for-tat,” but I think of it as an example of a universal problem: we assume unconsciously that others learn and understand the same way we do.

Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by every one who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little cap of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else. So she was always called Little Red Riding Hood.

One day her mother said to her, “Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will get nothing. And when you go into her room, don’t forget to say, good-morning, and don’t peep into every corner before you do it.”

I will take great care, said Little Red Riding Hood to her mother, and gave her hand on it.

The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, and just as Little Red Riding Hood entered the wood, a wolf met her. Little Red Riding Hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of him.

“Good-day, Little Red Riding Hood,” said he.

“Thank you kindly, wolf.”

“Whither away so early, Little Red Riding Hood?”

“To my grandmother’s.”

“What have you got in your apron?”

“Cake and wine. Yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to have something good, to make her stronger.”

“Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Riding Hood?”

“A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood. Her house stands under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below. You surely must know it,” replied Little Red Riding Hood.

The wolf thought to himself, “What a tender young creature. What a nice plump mouthful, she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to catch both.” So he walked for a short time by the side of Little Red Riding Hood, and then he said, “see Little Red Riding Hood, how pretty the flowers are about here. Why do you not look round. I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing. You walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry.”

Little Red Riding Hood raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, she thought, suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay. That would please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there in good time. And so she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and deeper into the wood.

Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother’s house and knocked at the door.

“Who is there?”

“Little Red Riding Hood,” replied the wolf. “She is bringing cake and wine. Open the door.”

“Lift the latch,” called out the grandmother, “I am too weak, and cannot get up.”

The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother’s bed, and devoured her. Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap, laid himself in bed and drew the curtains.

Little Red Riding Hood, however, had been running about picking flowers, and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she remembered her grandmother, and set out on the way to her.

She was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when she went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to herself, oh dear, how uneasy I feel to-day, and at other times I like being with grandmother so much.

She called out, “Good morning,” but received no answer. So she went to the bed and drew back the curtains. There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and looking very strange.

“Oh, grandmother,” she said, “what big ears you have.”

“The better to hear you with, my child,” was the reply.

“But, grandmother, what big eyes you have,” she said.

“The better to see you with, my dear.”

“But, grandmother, what large hands you have.”

“The better to hug you with.”

“Oh, but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have.”

“The better to eat you with.”

And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of bed and swallowed up Little Red Riding Hood.

When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again in the bed, fell asleep and began to snore very loud. The huntsman was just passing the house, and thought to himself, how the old woman is snoring. I must just see if she wants anything.

So he went into the room, and when he came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it. “Do I find you here, you old sinner,” said he. “I have long sought you.”

Then just as he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have devoured the grandmother, and that she might still be saved, so he did not fire, but took a pair of scissors, and began to cut open the stomach of the sleeping wolf.

When he had made two snips, he saw the Little Red Riding Hood shining, and then he made two snips more, and the little girl sprang out, crying, “Ah, how frightened I have been. How dark it was inside the wolf.”

And after that the aged grandmother came out alive also, but scarcely able to breathe. Little Red Riding Hood, however, quickly fetched great stones with which they filled the wolf’s belly, and when he awoke, he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that he collapsed at once, and fell dead.

Then all three were delighted. The huntsman drew off the wolf’s skin and went home with it. The grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine which Little Red Riding Hood had brought, and revived, but Little Red Riding Hood thought to herself, as long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so.

It is also related that once when Little Red Riding Hood was again taking cakes to the old grandmother, another wolf spoke to her, and tried to entice her from the path. Little Red Riding Hood, however, was on her guard, and went straight forward on her way, and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and that he had said good-morning to her, but with such a wicked look in his eyes, that if they had not been on the public road she was certain he would have eaten her up. “Well,” said the grandmother, “we will shut the door, that he may not come in.”

Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried, “open the door, grandmother, I am Little Red Riding Hood, and am bringing you some cakes.”

But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof, intending to wait until Little Red Riding Hood went home in the evening, and then to steal after her and devour her in the darkness. But the grandmother saw what was in his thoughts. In front of the house was a great stone trough, so she said to the child, take the pail, Little Red Riding Hood. I made some sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which I boiled them to the trough. Little Red Riding Hood carried until the great trough was quite full. Then the smell of the sausages reached the wolf, and he sniffed and peeped down, and at last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer keep his footing and began to slip, and slipped down from the roof straight into the great trough, and was drowned. But Little Red Riding Hood went joyously home, and no one ever did anything to harm her again.