a’ · 2012-12-17 · a democratic european citizenship that encourages tolerance and respect for...

The EUMOF Consortium / November 2011/ Nicosia, Cyprus

EUROPEAN MOBILITY FOLKTALES

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2 EUMOF TEACHER’S GUIDE

www.eumof.unic.ac.cy

http://www.eumof.unic.ac.cy/


Table of Contents

Introduction............................................................................. 4 EUMOF philosophy and educational approach

Criteria and process of collection

The EUMOF folktales

Useful EUMOF products and outcomes

Learning about

Culture.................................................................................... 7 Getting started

Educational objectives

Suggested activities

Learning about

Difference.............................................................................. 13 Getting started



Learning about

Language(s).......................................................................... 20

Getting started



Lesson

Descriptions........................................................................... 26

Summaries of EUMOF

Stories……........................................................................... 30

APPENDIX:

TABLES OF STORIES AND SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES


Introduction

EUMOF philosophy and educational approach

Welcome to the EUMOF project! EUMOF (European Mobility Folktales;

www.eumof.unic.ac.cy) is an EU funded Comenius Multilateral Project, which compiles

versions of folktales that pertain to travelling to “foreign” lands and encountering “different”

peoples and cultures. Travelling is a fundamental human activity that has been taking place

for thousands of years and for a multitude of reasons. It has always inevitably led to

encounters with “other” people and cultures. The EUMOF project collects European folk

stories about different aspects of travelling. These “European mobility folktales” are grouped

together, placed in different categories, and brought into dialogue with each other.

EUMOF’s general objective is to address the challenge of multiculturalism through the use

of European mobility folktales. The project's central activity is the adaptation, development,

testing, implementation and dissemination of new teaching methodologies and pedagogical

strategies for use in intercultural and language education. EUMOF provides teachers of

children between the ages 9-12 with educational strategies and material that enables them to

promote amongst their students an awareness of the importance of cultural and linguistic

diversity within Europe and of the need to combat racism, prejudice and xenophobia. The

project also focuses on the improvement of early second language learning, as well as the

teaching and learning of basic reading and writing skills. Through EUMOF, stories about

travelling travel, connecting teachers and students around Europe and reinforcing a sense of

a democratic European citizenship that encourages tolerance and respect for European

peoples, languages and cultures.

Criteria and process of collection

Representatives of the partner institutions involved in the project (listed on page 2 of this

document) first agreed on three basic criteria to be followed while building the collection:

(i) The story has to be a traditional folktale or legend from the partner’s country.

(ii) The plot must include some kind of travelling and encounters with “other” people

or creatures, cultures, and places.

(iii) When narrated orally, the story’s narration should not take more than ten minutes.

Based on these criteria, each partner collected three such stories from their country. The

stories were then translated in English and in all partner languages (German, Greek, Polish,



Romanian). Multilingual versions of all EUMOF stories are published both in print form

(The EUMOF Booklet) and in electronic form (on the project’s website:

www.eumof.unic.ac.cy ). Narrations of stories in their original language were also recorded

and published on-line and on an audio-CD (attached to The EUMOF Booklet).

The EUMOF folktales

The collection includes twenty four stories from five different EU member states: Austria;

Cyprus; Greece; Poland; Portugal.

Characters in these stories travel for all kinds of reasons: to go to war, to play their music

and make their living, to learn a trade, to make a fortune, to do business or do some

sightseeing, to find a husband or wife, to help others, to learn something, or even to meet

God. And during their journeys they meet all kinds of people, animals and magic creatures,

and visit all kinds of countries, kingdoms, cities, villages, forests, mountains and prairies.

Taking into account the similar characters, plots, or patterns in some of the stories, we have

grouped them under several themes. All stories are accessible in several languages on the

EUMOF website and browsed either by Theme or Country of origin.

Useful EUMOF products and outcomes

Through its website and other dissemination actions, the project makes readily available to

you and all other European educators the following series of products and outcomes:

• EUMOF Stories Booklet and Audio CD

• EUMOF Educational Objectives

• EUMOF Educational Activities

• EUMOF Teachers’ Guide

• EUMOF Teacher Training Courses

• Piloting and Implementation Reports

• EUMOF International Conference

• EUMOF Website (http://www.eumof.unic.ac.cy)

The present document, EUMOF Teacher’s Guide, is designed to help you, as educators of

children aged between 9 -12, incorporate the European Mobility Folktales collection and

educational material in your teaching. The following section, “Learning about Culture,”

introduces you to a comparative, intercultural use of the collection. The section after that,

entitled “Learning about Difference,” helps you to explore with your students issues of



mobility and diversity in the stories. The section “Learning about Language(s)” guides you

through the use of the collection for the teaching and learning of languages within cultures

and language/literacy teaching in general. Towards the end of the document you may find a

couple of lesson descriptions, as well as a chapter entitled “Summaries of EUMOF Stories,”

which gives you a brief overview of all the folktales in the collection, so you can easily

choose the ones to incorporate in your teaching. Finally, in the Appendix, you can find useful

tables that link all EUMOF activities to targeted objectives and appropriate EUMOF stories.


Learning about Culture

Getting started

Each EUMOF folktale reflects the culture that has produced it, as it is bound to be

related to culture-specific customs, traditions, legends, events, places etc., or include culture-

specific elements, such as clothing, art, music, food, language, architecture, everyday living,

heritage, etc. All these elements within the stories have the potential to bring to your students

a taste of diverse European cultures. As some of your students may share the same cultural

background with a EUMOF story, it is important to utilize their “expertise” and acknowledge

them as “representatives” of that culture.

As these folk stories were first told a long-long time ago and do not necessarily reflect

the modern culture and values and the contemporary way of living in the countries they

come from. While traditions and cultural heritage are important, we definitely wouldn’t

want children to come to believe that people in other countries are “backward” and continue

to dress, live and behave the same way people lived hundreds of years ago.

In the same spirit, we would like to point out that some of the collected folktales may

contain ideas that offend contemporary sensitivities and political correctness. They

come from periods in the distant past, when slavery was legal and women were

underprivileged or even oppressed. Inevitably, then, they include some elements or ideas that

by contemporary standards would be considered racist or sexist. We decided not to censor

these elements, but instead utilize them as opportunities for critical thinking, discussion, and

comparison. We encourage you to help your students identify ideas that are not in agreement

with contemporary ideology and human rights agreements and have them respond critically

and even creatively to them (e.g. by retelling the story in a contemporary setting).

Keeping the above points in mind, a sense of European citizenship, as well as tolerance

and respect for the peoples and cultures in these stories is expected to be promoted. In

addition, intercultural dialogue is central in EUMOF. The diverse stories within the

collection are quite appropriate for comparative approaches, which identify similarities and

differences, and appreciate the value of diversity. In order to achieve this, you need to

utilize stories from diverse settings. DO NOT limit yourself and your students only to

stories from your own country.


THREE SIMPLE STEPS TO GET STARTED

1. DECIDE ON YOUR FOCUS

Decide what educational areas you wish to target and set your

objectives. You can select some of the Culture EUMOF Objectives

listed further down and/or design your own objectives.

2. CHOOSE THE FOLKTALES YOU WILL USE

Browse the collection on-line and select the mobility folktales that

best fit your objectives. Familiarize yourself with the stories you are

going to use and the countries/cultures they come from. DO NOT

limit yourself and your students to stories from your own country.

3. DESIGN YOUR ACTIVITIES

From the “Culture” pool of activities on the website, choose the

suggested activities that best fit your objectives and selected stories.

Adjust them and/or design your own activities, in order to address the

specific needs and abilities of your own students.



These are the “Culture” educational objectives that have been developed for the purposes of

EUMOF. You may need to revise them or add your own objectives, to best fit your own

educational settings.

Children will be able to:

1. Form communities within which they interact freely, sharing their cultures and their

knowledge of other cultures with each other.

2. Discover connections between texts and their cultural contexts (e.g. art, music,

architecture, school, family, professions, customs, etc.).

3. Find out more about the history and traditions of the cultures that produced the

stories.

4. Explore the connections between actual people and places and those depicted in the

story; extend this knowledge through research.

5. Engage in self-reflection regarding their cultural identities and discover how they are

different or similar to each other.

6. Ponder on similarities and differences between European cultures and begin to form a

European citizenship which recognises the similarities within cultures and celebrates

the differences.


Sample activities

In this section, you can find some sample EUMOF activities that highlight the potential

comparative, intercultural use of the collection. Longer descriptions of these and many more

activities can be found on the project’s website, under “Educational Activities”> “Culture.”

Title: New Destination

1. After reading and discussing a EUMOF story, students work in pairs identifying the

places visited by the hero and how these places and the people/creatures s/he met

there helped her/him in the story.

2. Teacher explains that the story comes from a European country and asks students if

they have visited any other European countries recently.

3. Students then get into groups, choose a European country and read more about it,

listing any information they may find interesting.

4. Teacher asks them to imagine what would happen if the hero of the story travelled to

this modern country instead of the place s/he travels in the original story. How would

he get there? What would he see and who would he meet? What would he eat? How

would this place help her/him find the solution to her/his problem?

Title: Do you know these animals? Where do they live?

1. In many folk tales there are animals that speak, understand the human speech and

help the protagonists. Read the following stories, find the animals, and write each of

them on a separate sheet of paper. Describe them and list their characteristics.

2. After having together discovered the animals in the stories, the teacher distributes the

tasks. Each child (or a group of children) has/have to do research on the Internet

about one animal.

3. Kinder report what they know or have learned about these animals?

4. Are the animals acting the same way in real life and in the folk tales?

5. Do these animals live in the countries, where the story comes from?

6. There is one animal that doesn’t live in the European countries, the Lion. Still, lions

are often found in European folk tales. Why?


Title: Markets in the world

1. After the narration of the fairy tale the teacher divides the children into groups and

asks the members of each group to imagine and describe the King’s of Cyprus visit to

Venice’s market. In order to help them, he could give the groups some questions like:

“How do the shops look like?”, “What do they sell?”, “What do the traders’ and

customers’ clothes look like?”, “How are the products advertized?”

2. Each group presents to the whole class the thoughts they have made about Venice’s

market in past times and then a discussion follows.

3. The teacher asks the groups to think about the basic similarities and differences

between the market of the fairy tale’s age and the market of our age.

4. Then, a whole class discussion follows during which the groups state their point of

view.

5. Next, the students talk about the markets (open air) both in their country and also in

other ones, which they have visited.

6. The teacher assigns each group the task to find information (texts and images) about

markets (open air) in a different place of the world: markets in Europe, Africa,

Middle East, Central Asia, North America and elsewhere. The students can look for

real pictures of the markets, and also illustrations of scenes in markets in different

places of the world.

Title: Writing a Song

1. After reading a EUMOF story, the whole class collaborates to write a summary of the

story on the board.

2. Students listen to traditional songs on a CD (either songs from their home country or

from the story’s country).

3. Students are then asked to work in groups and draft appropriate lyrics that narrate the

story and fit to the music of one of the songs. Epic songs might be the most easy to

adopt.

4. Groups then share their drafts and use the best ideas in order to create the final

version of the lyrics.

5. They then sing the lyrics while they listen to the music on the CD.


Title: Put these characters on the map!

1. Teacher tells students that they will have to cut out the beginnings of stories and stick

them to their countries of origin. The countries of origin may be chosen amongst the

following: Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, Austria, Poland, Greece and Spain. One of these

countries is the origin of 2 stories and one country doesn’t apply.

2. Teacher gives correct matching after students have completed task. 1.AU; 2.CY;

3.PT; 4.PL; 5.CY; 6.GR.

3. Next, students are invited to find the title for each story. Solutions: 1. A Treasure in

the Fireplace; 2.Sierolotta; 3.The Tower of Babylon; 4. The Legend of the Bugle of

Cracow; 5. The Prince of Venice; 6. The Black Man.

4. The last activity on the handout is to see if students remember the countries of origin

of the stories. As a follow-up, students are invited to choose a country and/or a story

to read from the excerpts presented.

Title: Religions in the world

1. After narrating the story, the teacher asks the students to spot elements concerning

religion.

2. The class discusses which religion the elements they found refer to.

3. Then, the students brainstorm the religions they know and the results are written on

the board.

4. A whole class discussion is conducted about the basic facts the students know about

the religions mentioned. Students who come from families that have as their religion

another than the master one, could function as catalysts in the above discussion.

5. Students form groups. Each group chooses a religion from the list that was formed by

the brainstorming, do research on its basic characteristics and presents them in class,

some other day.

6. After all the groups have presented the religions in class, the students find any

similarities or differences among them, based on their notes.

7. The students and their teacher/families could visit different religions’ places of

worship that exist in their area.

8. The teacher and the students could invite in class persons that belong in different

religion groups to talk about their religion. The visitors could also come from the

students’ family or social background.


Learning about Difference

Getting started

All EUMOF folktales focus on characters that travel. One of the three criteria we

followed to collect the tales was the following:

(ii) the plot must include some kind of travelling and encounters with “other” people

or creatures, cultures, and places.

So, all EUMOF stories reflect issues that pertain to travelling and the mobility of people,

ideas, cultures, etc. These lead, of course, to issues that pertain to the acceptance and

celebration of diversity. These two areas (Mobility and Diversity) are grouped here under the

same general category Difference.

Encouraging your students to reflect on and explore the reasons that have prompted

humans to travel since the beginning of time is central for a better understanding of

Mobility and Diversity. And while not all reasons for travelling are based on good intentions

(e.g. military invasions) in most cases mobility can bring about several positive effects, for

intercultural understanding, the personal and professional growth of people, and a

community’s culture, science, and economy. European integration and progress depends

heavily on these positive effects of mobility.

As mentioned in the “Culture” section, these folk stories were first told a long-long time

ago and do not necessarily reflect modern cultures and norms. This means that some

stories may imply negative stances towards difference. In fact, by contemporary standards,

some elements or ideas in the folktales may be considered racist or sexist. We encourage you

to help your students identify ideas that are not in agreement with contemporary ideology

and human rights agreements and have them respond critically and even creatively to them

(e.g. by telling the story from the oppressed person’s point of view).

Activities listed under the area of “Difference,” enable you to promote amongst your

students an awareness of the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity within

Europe and of the need to combat racism, prejudice and xenophobia. Comparative

approaches are again most appropriate; for instance, students could compare EUMOF

stories, explore why their heroes travel, and identify diverse attitudes towards difference.





objectives. You can select some of the Difference EUMOF Objectives





going to use and the countries/cultures they come from. DO NOT

limit yourself and your students to stories from your own country.


From the “Difference” pool of activities on the website, choose the






These are the “Difference” educational objectives that have been developed for the purposes

of EUMOF. As explained in the previous pages, we have listed under “Difference” two more

specific areas: “Mobility” and “Diversity.” You may need to revise them or add your own

objectives, to best fit your own educational settings.


Mobility

7. Identify and analyze an imaginary or real person’s motives for travelling.

8. Demonstrate positive stances towards meeting and interacting with “other” people, places, and

cultures.

9. Demonstrate a critical attitude towards mobility (crossing various kinds of boundaries for

diverse reasons) evaluating it from different points of view.

Diversity

10. Identify and critique attitudes towards “difference” within a story and within real-life

contexts.

11. Take action as promoters of civic equity and intercultural understanding.

12. Appreciate cultural diversity and view it as a positive characteristic of European societies.

13. Identify historical change in the views about or attitudes towards “other” people(s).

14. Learn to see through other people's eyes by developing respect and tolerance, and promoting

intercultural relationships as the key to conflict resolution.


Sample activities

In this section, you can find some sample EUMOF activities that highlight the potential use

of the collection to educate students about mobility and diversity. Longer descriptions of

these and many more activities can be found on the project’s website, under “Educational

Activities”> “Difference.”

MOBILITY

Title: Interviewing Migrants

1. One or two of the stories are read or told to the children (or two different stories to

two groups).

2. The teacher asks children WHY the protagonist has to leave his home and family.

3. Personalizing the reasons of migration: Are there people in your family who had to

leave their home and family and go to another country?

4. Children with migrant background share stories of migration with the rest of the

class.

5. The teacher collects different reasons for migration on the board.

6. Children interview migrants (in their families or other people). The migrants are

asked why they could not or did not want to stay at the place where they had been

born.

7. The children present their findings in class, e.g. show photos of migrants and tell

their stories.

8. The ways of migration are visualized on a map in class.

Title: How people in Europe travelled in the old times and why

1. Identify on the map each of the countries participating in the EUMOF project.

2. Give suggestions how the people from each of these countries could travel in the old

times.

3. Read a story from each country and check whether your suggestions were correct.

4. Look in the stories and compare what the travelling people usually had in their bags

for the long way? (In the Greek stories they had besides bread and water also olives,

why?).


5. Compare the three folk tales and see the different motives of travelling. (To try there

luck, to meat new people, to learn something new from them, to become rich…)

6. How do you think, what has happened to the different protagonists while they were

travelling? (Possible answers: They met new people, visited new countries, learned a

lot.; they had the opportunity to try their ability to communicate with the others, they

have gone through many difficulties and have become more mature, they have

proven their abilities in unknown milieus, but some have also come to conquer a

land, or to cheat the others, i.e. they crossed moral borders, etc.)

Title: To Travel on not to Travel?

1. Teacher narrates the story up to a point where the hero decides to leave his country.

2. Teacher asks two students to express their opinion about the decision of the

protagonist. Will his life improve by leaving his home or is this a wrong decision?

One of them is supposed to agree and the other to disagree. They have a debate,

trying to convince their audience (classmates) that their opinion is the right one.

3. Teacher asks the other students to vote for one of these two opinions and to write

down at least one reason for choosing this opinion.

4. After voting, the teacher asks children to step into the hero’s shoes and to imagine

what they would do. Would they leave on a journey, or not?

5. A brief whole-class discussion follows, examining why the hero decided to leave and

what were the factors that urged him to do this. Why do people travel?

6. Teacher continues and concludes the narration of the story.

7. Children re-examine the hero’s decisions based on the ending/consequences.

DIVERSITY

Title: Identity Card

1. Teacher shows her/his identity card, discussing the various elements that compose it.

2. Children suggest other information that could go on someone’s identity card (e.g.

favorite color, food, place, ice cream flavor/ important personality trades/ profession/

habits etc.)

3. Teacher narrates a EUMOF story.


4. Then the whole class collaborates to fill in an identity card for the protagonist.

5. Children get into groups and each group gets a different story.

6. Each group fills in a new protagonists’ identity card according to their group’s

folktale.

7. At the end each group presents its identity card and students find differences and

similarities among the protagonists. How are the children similar to or different from

these characters? How are these characters treated in the story? Which elements of

their identity cards are important in the story? Why? Establish connections to real-life

people and attitudes towards identity.

Title: The Opposite Story (for the stories “Black Man” and/or “Mavris”)

1. As soon as the story has been narrated, the teacher asks the students to narrate the

opposite story, that is, a story in which all the heroes (King, Queen, Princess) are

black and Blackman is a white man.

2. A student plays the role of Blackman (the hero of the original story) and the other

students become journalists who ask him a number of questions (how he felt when

the King ordered to kill him, when he was saved, when he married the princess, etc.).

This step can be repeated having other students to play the part of “Blackman”, as

well.

3. A student acts the part of the “Whiteman” (the hero of the opposite story) and the

students repeat the same as in step 2. This step can also be repeated by having other

students play the part of “Whiteman” as well.

4. There is a whole-class discussion about one’s feelings when he is different from the

master group.

Title: Kindness to Strangers

1. Teacher writes on the board: ‘Would you like a foreigner to live with you at home?

Why? Why not?

2. Teacher discusses with students good things and bad things that might happen:

E.g. S/he might not like the food. S/he may not know enough language to

communicate. S/he may not understand our implicit rules, such as when to stand up


and go to sleep, how to use the fork and the knife. What you want to tell the visitor

and what s/he would like to hear may be different, etc….

3. Teacher shows four details of one page from Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia

(handout) and elicits what kind of questions are being asked by the secret foreign

visitor.

4. In groups, students are invited to create storyboards (a series of illustrations) based on

excerpts from three selected folktales that include “kindness to strangers” (handout).


Learning about Language(s)

Getting started

All EUMOF activities contribute to the development of students’ effective use of their

native oral and written language. EUMOF also focuses on the improvement of second

language learning, as well as the teaching and learning of basic reading and writing

skills. As all stories are available in English, German, Greek, Polish, and Portuguese,

teachers can capitalize on the multilingual aspect of the collection, by introducing their

students to foreign languages, and inspiring them to adopt a positive stance towards second

language learning.

There is a multitude of linguistic elements you could work on with your students, even

if you are not a fluent speaker of a foreign language:

Character recognition

E.g. Ask students to compare the characters in the alphabet of their native language with the

alphabet of a foreign language.

Word recognition

E.g. Ask students to look for words that are similar with other words in a language they

speak or discuss the origin of some words.

Speculate about meaning

E.g. Discuss capitalization: if the first letter is capital then it is a name.

The sound of words

E.g. Combine written (read the book) and spoken form (read the story and listen to its audio

narration on the EUMOF CD or website) and reach conclusions about the pronunciation of

words.

Language skills

E.g. Have students use resources (dictionary’s/thesaurus) to find the meaning of unknown –

foreign words or ask them to arrange foreign words and punctuation marks in the correct

order to form sentences.

In any case, comparative and playful approaches are the most appropriate.





objectives. You can select some of the Language EUMOF Objectives





going to use and the languages they are presented in. DO NOT limit

yourself and your students to stories from your own country.


From the “Language” pool of activities on the website, choose the






These are the “Language(s)” educational objectives that have been developed for the

purposes of EUMOF. They are divided into “Languages within cultures” objectives (in

relation to second or foreign language learning) and in “Language & Literacy” (general skills

that pertain to language and literature). You may need to revise them or add your own

objectives, to best fit your own educational settings.


Languages within cultures

15. Demonstrate positive stances towards learning foreign languages.

16. Identify and read commonly used words, phrases, and structures in stories written in

another European language.

17. Appreciate Europe’s linguistic diversity as linguistic richness.

18. Identify some of the European languages when they hear them.

19. Identify some of the European languages when they see them in written form.

Language & Literacy

20. Demonstrate positive stances towards listening, reading and narrating folktales and

other narrative texts, viewing the act of storytelling as an imaginative journey, but

also as a way of interpreting real life.

21. Apply reading and listening strategies to comprehend, analyse, and criticize a

narrative text.

22. Apply speaking strategies to present, in an attracting and convincing way, ideas and

arguments, which pertain to the stories.

23. Compare folktales and identify similarities and differences, in terms of the way in

which they are structured and written.


Sample activities

In this section, you can find some sample EUMOF activities that highlight the potential of

the collection for language(s) learning. Longer descriptions of these and many more

activities can be found on the project’s website, under “Educational Activities”>

“Language.”

Title: Exploring Numbers (Numerals) in Different Languages

1. A EUMOF story dealing with three sisters/brothers/animals etc. is read or told to the

children.

2. Question: Do you know other stories or folk tales in which the number THREE is

important?

3. Children narrate their stories.

4. Question: Can you tell the number THREE (and/or other numbers) in other

languages?

5. Children try to fill in a grid in a relevant handout.

6. Children ask their parents, relatives, neighbours, and friends to help them and

collaborate in groups to fill in the grid. They should try to get into contact with

people from different linguistic backgrounds.

7. The findings are copied to a poster.

8. Possibly a little prize could be awarded to those children who could find out numbers

in most languages.

Title: The “Drakish” Language

1. After narrating the story of the Little Goldenmoon (from Greece), students form

groups in order to create the “Drakish” language, that is, the language spoken by the

dragons in the fairy tale.

2. Each group decides on some common characteristics of the “Drakish” and based on

them, they make some words or phrases (eg. “good morning”, “how are you”, “we

are dragons”, “who are you”, etc.). The “Drakish” vocabulary could contain original

words found in different languages, words created by the students combining words

from different languages or completely imaginary words that children usually make.

3. Each group presents a short dialogue in “Drakish” to the other groups. The groups

who watch try to understand the dialogue’s content.


4. A whole class discussion follows during which the students talk about differences

and similarities in the “Drakish” language each group created. They discuss if the

“Drakish”of one group reminded them and in which points of an existing language.

Also, whose “Drakish” seemed easier or more difficult than the one of the rest

groups, etc.

5. After the discussion, students can role play the fairy tale, having the heroes/dragons

speak some version of the “Drakish” language they have created.

Title: Familiar words

1. Teacher divides the class into pairs.

2. Teacher asks the students to look for familiar words in the text of a foreign story.

3. Students speculate about the meaning of the words in a foreign language.

4. Students create groups of chosen words.

5. Students create their own poems, using the familiar foreign words found by all the

pairs.

6. Students present and compare their poems.

Title: Place Names

1. The “Wars and Sawa” story (from Poland) is read or told to the children.

2. Question: Can you explain the place name of your town or village?

3. If yes, children report to the class. Otherwise the teacher should prepare a few

examples.

4. Children are divided in two groups.

5. Group A tries to discover similarities in the naming of towns/villages of the

respective own region, like (in German/English/Italian/Slavic languages) elements

like Burg/castle, chester/castello/grad, Stadt/town/villa/mesto, miasto ,

Dorf/borgo/ves, …

6. Group B tries to identify similar place names all over Europe. Possibly they need a

bit of help in order to know that e.g. Neumarkt in Austria corresponds to Nowy Targ.

7. The findings are copied to the posters.

A small prize is awarded to those children who could find out most place names.


Title: Placing Human Punctuation Marks

1. Teacher chooses several students to stand at the front of the classroom holding the

sentence strips for one sentence.

2. Teacher makes another student choose a card for one of the punctuation marks and

stand next to the students with the sentence strips. They are to line up in the order

that the sentence would be written on paper.

3. Teacher continues making students choose and place the cards needed for

punctuation until the sentence has been completed.

4. Teacher asks the class, if they agree or disagree with the placements.

5. Teacher repeats the process with a variety of sentences, taken from the chosen folk

tale.

Title: Exploring Greeting Words

1. The story “Roman Ghosts” (from Austria) is read or told to the children.

2. Question: Can you greet in a language other than your native language(s)?

3. Greeting words in as many different languages as possible are collected in the class.

4. Children try to fill in the grid on a handout.

5. Children (in groups of two or three) are sent out to ask their parents, relatives,

neighbours, and friends to help them fill in the grid. They should try to get into

contact with people from different linguistic background.

6. The greeting words can be grouped: formal/informal (i.e. within the family),

according to the time of the day (morning, midday, afternoon, evening, night),

meeting/departing.

7. The findings are copied to a poster.


Lesson Descriptions

Storyteller at Secondary School St. Stefan/Stainz, Austria

Activities with “Little Goldenmoon”

This day I went to the public library of St. Stefan/Stainz, which is located close to the secondary

school. The children only had to walk for 3 minutes and they already knew the library from other

visits. The teacher was very excited and curios about the stories from other countries. In the end of

the lesson, I also handed the EUMOF material to her. When the children came, we gathered and I

explained what we will do. I choose the activity ‘The little Goldenmoon’. First we talked about tales

in general and I got to know, that the children already knew a lot about how tales are structured.

Then I read the story to them and stopped at a certain point. We talked a little bit about the story and

found out, that there are similarities to one from Austria. Then I separated the class into groups and

told them to find some place, where they can prepare their little role play. I also told them, to write it

down first.

I did not know what to expect from the children, because I did not know how familiar they are with

acting. Despite my doubts all children were really into creating an alternative end and were

motivated. After half an hour the children were ready to present their results. We gathered again and

one group after the other presented their outcomes. Two groups where a little bit shy, so they only

read (in the different roles) to the audience. The other groups acted their alternative ends and had a

lot of fun. Also the children who watched did like to see the others acting.

Altogether I was really surprised with how well the children did. They really understood how to bring

the tale to an end, and which elements are important to tell the stories. Except a few children, they

really liked to act in front of the others and also were proud to present their work. After all the

presentations I read the original tale to them.

During the second part of the lesson we did the activity ‘Hidden treasure’. In advance I choose one

story from Austria, which is written in old-fashioned German. I wanted to see if the children are able

to understand the words and also if they can find the racist part of the story. I chose the story ‘The

Fireplace,’ printed it and cut it into five pieces. Before the children arrived in the library, I hid the

pieces of paper in books and noted down were they are. First I read the first part of the story to the

children and then asked them what will happen next. They had really creative ideas, also funny ones,

and really did like to fantasise about the ongoing of the story. Then a few children were allowed to

search for the next piece of the story. I gave them a hint, in which book it was hidden. We did so until

we finished the whole story. All children had problems to understand the old-fashioned German and

did not know for example the old word for Italian, which is ‘welsch’. This word also is kind of

degrading.

They really liked to search for the tale-pieces and to guess what will happen next. They also

understood that the foreigner was the bad character, who wanted to profit from the honest Austrian.


They also were able to find the connection to nowadays. The children liked both activities. Also the

teacher was excited, but I don’t know if she used the other material.

Teacher at Primary School in Larnaca, Cyprus

Activities with “Sierolotta” [Iron Pig]

This morning I had scheduled to differentiate my lesson. I am a teacher in a primary school in

Larnaka area and I teach in a fifth grade of the school. I was feeling weird because I didn’t know if

children would like the story that was ready to teach them. I was hesitated about this lesson because

children sometimes laughed at the tradition and the stories of their country.

When the lesson started the children were actually confused. They couldn’t understand what was the

really meaning of the story. I choose to teach the story of “sierolotta” which was talking about a

weird creature. It was looking like a pig but this creature was wild and fearsome. The children had to

recognize different cultural elements that show the civilization, the tradition and the perceptions of

Cypriot people.

After reading the story the children were excited because this creature was really weird. Instead of

being scared they had fun while they were listening to this story. They tried to imagine this creature. I

understood that they had unique ideas and I asked them to paint the creature on a piece of paper. The

children created beautiful paintings and pictures. They liked the way that we had this lesson.

Then I asked them to find and tell me different things and parts of the story that they impressed them.

I listened to a lot of interesting things. One of my students told me that he wanted to be the monk who

fight and won sierolotta. One child told me that if he was one of the people living in this village he

would leave the village and live in another village. Finally the children wanted to play the roles of

the monk and of sierolotta. I was impressed by the way they played the roles and they expressed their

fear or their happiness.

I really liked the way we did our lesson and I am sure that the children did so. I will choose another

story and I will repeat this lesson.

Teacher at Platon Primary School, Greece

Activities with “The Three Brothers”

In the context of the EUMOF project, I chose to use the activity “The Three Lands” and I

implemented it by exploiting the fairy tale “The Three Brothers”. The objectives of this activity were

to familiarize the students with the “Difference”, to learn to respect the particular cultural

characteristics of each place and to identify and appreciate the importance of diversity about the

evolution of human civilization.

Regarding the implementation of this activity in the classroom, the following procedure was

followed. The students were divided into three groups. I gave to each student a copy of the fairy tale.

Initially I read it once and then some of the students read it as well. I asked the students some reading


comprehension questions about the special way that each people were behaving. The children were

asked to find the elements that seemed strange to them in every country of the fairy tale and think

about why this behaviour arose. Through the exchange of opinions the children understood that the

inhabitants in the lands of the fairy tale were not crazy. They realized that the knowledge and

perceptions of the people from each country were simply different and that the meeting between

people can help in the development and finding of new ideas.

Then I asked the children to tell me if they knew any particular habits or phrases used in only some

areas of our country. I enriched their knowledge with some more cases that had not been reported by

the children. In this way, we realized that even all of us who live in our country we are not absolutely

the same.

Then I asked everyone who was wearing jeans to stand up. Later to stand up those who had brown

hair. In this way we observed that even in our classroom all of us are not absolutely the same.

After that, I announced to the children that we would play a game. I gave to each group of students a

card that had as a title: “THE CULTURAL NORMS OF OUR COUNTRY”. I explained to children

that each group is a separate country in our game. They should have read silently and learn the

norms, in order to be prepared to implement them later. Prerequisite of the game was that each

group – country should not be aware of the other team norms.

The cultural norms of each group were conflicting. The norms of the first group were the following:

when we meet someone from another country, we must join our hands and surround him, not to talk

to him and smile constantly. The norms of the second group were the following: when we meet

someone from another country we must hold his hand if we want to talk to him and at the time we talk

to him we should be hitting our feet on the floor. According to the norms of the third group: when we

meet someone from another country we must not touch him or he must not touch us, it is forbidden to

look at him/her in his/her eyes and we are allowed to talk to him/her only if we are men.

After the teams worked out the norms, two of the teams got up, went into the middle of the class and

did a reconstruction of the meeting of the two countries. The third group noted down the reactions of

the students who made the reconstruction. The procedure was repeated two more times in order to

make all possible matches between the three countries.

After finishing this process, everyone sat down to discuss the results. The first observation was that

they failed to have an understanding between the countries. When I asked them to tell me what went

wrong and failed to agree, the children said that there was no one to blame but the problem arose

because of the special norms that each country /team had. The second observation was that there

were different reactions among students during the meeting of the countries. Some were shocked,

some laughed, some were hesitant and cautious at first, but later they had a lot of fun.

So we came to the following conclusion: that the situation we saw in class, comes very close to

reality. We often meet people from other places, people who have different habits, different language


and different rules of behaviour. This can complicate our discussion with them; it could cause

laughter to some, or surprise, or even ridicule and resentment. We, however, understood that there is

nothing wrong with the people, neither one is worse or better than another There are simply some

cultural differences, which when they are respected and when there is an interest for understanding

and communication, these differences can inspire new ideas and develop the culture of every people.

The activity was completed with the dramatization of the fairy tale by the students of my class.


Summaries of EUMOF Stories

STORIES FROM AUSTRIA

PILFERING

Once upon a time there was a poor peasant, who had three sons. The peasant asked their sons

to learn a handicraft. Then the sons left the house to learn a handicraft. The oldest brothers

left together but the younger one left alone. This boy met an old man who told him to follow

him. After a while they reached a cave and went in. The boy was puzzled when he noticed a

group of ferocious looking men who amused themselves by playing cards and dice. They

were robbers and the boy had to go with them every time they had a robbery. After a long

time the three brothers returned home. When the younger boy told to his father about

pilfering, the father went to the magistrate. This magistrate asked the young boy a difficult

job. Over there in the fields, there was his farmhand with a pair of oxen. If he managed to

steal one ox from the plough, he would earn another fifty ducats and they would give him a

job at the municipality. The young boy did it and got fifty ducats in addition to his own fifty

and was employed as a warden, because he knew very well how to deal with thieves.

THE FIREPLACE

Once upon a time there was a stranger, a distinguished gentleman from Italy, who stopped to

get some rest at a peasant’s house in Northern Styria. In his kitchen, the peasant had an

exceptionally large, old style stone fireplace to which the stranger turned his attention.

Behind this kitchen there were a lot of pots of gold and the stranger knew it. He tried to trick

the peasant so he sent him to Italy to find a new kitchen and replace the old one with that.

But the peasant realized what was going on and he asked his wife by sending her a letter to

find and hide the pots. So it happened. When the Italian and the peasant returned to the

village, the Italian demolished the old kitchen and put a new one. But he didn’t find the

treasure. The peasant laughed up his sleeve because he tricked the Italian who had wanted to

take his great-grandfather’s treasure.

ROMAN GHOSTS

Once upon a time there was a strong young man with a tanned face and a walking stick in his

hand. He had left his dear mother and his faithful sister in order to go to war against the

Turkish army. He had wanted to gain victories for his emperor and make a small fortune for

himself. He was tired from the long journey, so he sat down on a small mound under a

shade-giving tree and fell asleep. Suddenly, someone tapped him lightly on his back. An old

man waved to him, and the lad followed him willingly. So they wandered across a few grave

mounds and entered one of them, into the earth. They went into to a high vault where many

strange men gathered around a long table, they all had the same outfit as their chief. They

welcomed the surprised young man, filled his pouches and pockets with pieces of gold and

one of them even served him a goblet of wine. More and more bodies crowded around the

lad, toasted and cheered. Again and again he bravely exclaimed “Vivat!” It was the only

Latin word he knew. All of a sudden the lad shook. He started up and still found himself

lying on the mould. He thought that it was only a dream. But when he put his hand in his

pocket, he found it was full of ancient gold coins. He understood that what he had seen was

not a dream. He had become rich.

THE FROG FIANCÉE

A poor widow wanted to leave her possessions to one of her three sons as they were too few

to split into three. Yet she loved all three of them, and in order not to have to choose one, she

gave each of them a bundle of flax and asked them to bring them back the most beautifully

spun yarn. The youngest one met a frog near a lake. The frog took the flax, jumped into the

http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&p=Ci4HO3kMAA&search=walking&trestr=0x8001


lake and soon came out with the yarn spun. The young man thanked the frog and was about

to go back home when the frog told him he should come to the lake again later. He would

find a golden cane by the lake. He was to pick it up, strike the frog three times and after that

strike the water three times. After that the youngest son went back to his mother’s house with

the beautiful yarn. But then he went quickly back to the lake and found the golden cane

there. When he picked it up, the frog appeared in front of him. The young man struck the

frog three times and at that very moment it changed into a beautiful girl dressed in a silver

dress and then he struck the lake’s surface three times and all of a sudden it turned into a

castle with blossoming meadows around it. Finally the youngest son married the girl.

THE GOLDEN SHOES

Once upon a time there was an old musician. He travelled around the world and played his

fiddle. This was how he earned his living. One day he stopped in front of a chapel and, being

in a good mood, he entered the chapel and started playing and singing as well as he could to

the glory of God. All of a sudden a golden shoe fell from the altar of Virgin Mary just in

front of him. The old musician tried to sell this golden shoe to many people he met but

nobody wanted to buy it. The last man thought that the musician was a thief and he called the

police. The musician was trying to prove that he was innocent and he asked them to take him

to the chapel. There he started playing and singing as before. He played even better than

before because now he asked the Lord, his only witness, for help. When he finished his song

the wonder happened again. The guards saw another golden shoe fall down in front of the

old musician. The happy musician went back to the goldsmith who bought from him the

golden shoes and gave him so much money for them that he didn’t have to beg by playing on

his fiddle any more till the end of his days.

THE LION, THE STORK, AND THE ANT

A poor widow lived with her son Hans in a forest. But the son wanted to see the world. His

mother couldn’t stop him and he left the house. While he was walking the young boy met a

lion, a stork and an ant. They asked him to solve their problem. When the young man did so,

the lion made him very strong, the stork made him able to fly high and the ant made him able

to become very small. After that he saw a town. All the houses were covered in black and the

inhabitants wore black clothes because the king’s daughter was kidnapped. Hans asked

where the castle was and went that way to save the princess. He used the powers that the

three animals gave him, he saved the princess and he destroyed the castle of the dragon. The

beautiful girl married her rescuer and they lived happily ever after.

____________________

STORIES FROM CYPRUS

MY POOR CHILD VASILIS

Once upon a time there was a farmer, named Vasilis. He was living in a small cottage with

his wife and their little daughter. One day, while his wife was combing her daughter’s hair,

she noticed the tall grape grapevine that hang over the well. She thought it was very

dangerous and started crying with sobs. She thought that if her daughter had a son, he would

climb over the grapevine and fall into the well. The farmer was very mad about that and he

left the house. He would return back home if he could find someone who would be stranger

than his wife. One day, he arrived at a village. There, he saw a lot of people running up and

down, asking for help. In the middle of the village square a young boy was standing. The boy

had put his hands in a large jug filled with walnuts. His hands glided easily into the jug when

they were empty. But now the young boy couldn’t pull his hands out because he didn’t want

to leave the walnuts. People thought that they had to cut little child’s hands. The farmer went

to the little boy and talked sweetly to him. The little boy left the walnuts and his hands were


came out of the jag. The village people thought this was a miracle. But the farmer decided to

return to his wife and daughter. He understood now that all people are strange, one way or

another.

KOUTSOUKOUTOU

Once upon a time, there was a little beetle called Koutsoukoutou, who decided to get

married. But her body was black and she was very sad about that. Because of her colour she

couldn’t find a husband. Koutsoukoutou met a lot of people who wanted to marry her but she

did not agree with them. Finally Koutsoukoutou gladly took the mouse for her husband. On

their wedding day, all animals, birds, and insects were gathered. They were having lots of

fun, when suddenly they ran out of water. The bride decided to go and bring some water

herself but she got tired and lied down to get some rest. She fell asleep. The mouse got

angry, and started hitting her with his tail! Koutsoukoutou woke up but was only tickled by

the mouse’s tail. She was laughing so hard that the mouse started laughing too. He was not

angry any more.

SIEROLOTTA

In Doros, a village near the city of Lemesos in Cyprus, there lived a creature that scared all

the village people. This creature was a wild and fearsome Sierolotta, which weighed more

than four tones. Her face was made of iron and her teeth were sharp as knives. Sometimes

she would appear to have a woman’s head, with live snakes instead of hair. Sierolotta was

growling, and jumping, and kicking near the village. The villagers didn’t know what to do to.

One day, a strange monk visited the village. He talked to the lords and told them that he

wanted to build a monastery near the canyon. The lords listened carefully to what he had to

say, and then they told him the story of Sierolotta. The strange monk headed for the canyon

whispering some words. Suddenly, he saw Sierolotta coming at him. They started to fight.

Sierolotta attacked the monk but he shined like a star. Then, the monk wings on his back,

flew, and grabbed Sierolotta. The ground shook and was split in two. The Monk threw

Sierolotta in the void and the creature disappeared. Next morning, a bright white light shown

on the village. The villagers found the Monk sitting on a big rock, smiling. He told them that

their troubles were over.

MAVRIS

Once upon a time in a kingdom, there lived a King and a Vizier. Their wives were pregnant

with their first child. The King and the Vizier agreed that, if the one had a daughter and the

other had a son, they would have their children marry each other. But the Vizier’s wife had a

boy with dark skin, who was given the name Mavris and the King didn’t want his daughter to

marry him. When the princess came of age, the King decided to have her marry another man.

But Mavris was sad about that and decided to leave on a long journey. He wanted to find

God and ask Him what he could do to change the colour of his skin. After some time, he

finally found God. God told him the answer to his question. Mavris did exactly what the God

told him and he left on his body a mark because this would prove his identity. After a long

way, he finally arrived at the kingdom. He went straight to the King and told him his story.

The King commanded that Mavris get married with his daughter.


THE PICKY PRINCESS

Once upon a time there was a King who had a beautiful but also very proud daughter. A lot

of princes had asked her to marry them, but she would always find a flaw in each prince.

Then another prince came by and the princess liked him, but unfortunately this prince had

long hair. The King was very mad. He asked the last prince to cut his hair and to get dressed

like a poor basket weaver. The King told his daughter that she would get married with the

poor basket weaver. So it happened. After that the princess took off her expensive clothes

and wore a simple dress. Then they left for the prince’s house. The prince took some canes

and began to weave them into baskets. But the guards of his father arrested him because it

was forbidden to make and sell baskets in the central square. The princess went to see the

prince and to ask him to leave his husband. But when she went to the prince’s house she

realized tha the prince was his husband. And they lived happily ever after.

THE PRINCE OF VENICE

Once upon a time, a King lived in Cyprus. The King had three daughters. He told them that

he would have a trip and asked them to tell him what they wanted to bring them. The oldest

daughter asked for a dress with the sky with the stars embroidered on it. The second daughter

asked for a dress with the sea and all its creatures embroidered on it. The Princess asked her

father to bring the three golden tufts of hair. The King arrived to beautiful Venice. When he

finished his business there, he went to the market to look for his daughters’ presents. But for

his youngest daughter, he didn’t know how to get the golden tufts of hair from the Prince’s

head. So, he bought her expensive dresses and jewellery and returned to his ship. But the

ship would not sail to take him away from Venice. So the King realized that he had to find a

way to get the golden tufts of hair from the Prince. He asked who the Prince’s barber was

and went to find him. Next time he cut the Prince’s hair, he was to keep three tufts of hair.

The barber did as agreed. The King took the tufts and returned to Cyprus. When he arrived at

Cyprus, his daughters welcomed him and the King gave them their presents. When night

came, the Princess opened the window of her room, she filled a bowl with rosewater and

perfumes and another one with rose petals and flowers. Then in a little vessel, she burned the

first golden tuft from the Prince’s hair. Suddenly, a golden eagle flew into the room from the

window. He washed in the bowl with the rosewater and perfumes and dried himself in the

bowl with the rose petals and flowers. He was then transformed into the Prince of Venice!

The young Princess of Cyprus and the Prince of Venice fell in love. Before the Prince left for

his home, he promised to come back the next evening. But her sisters, who saw what

happened the night before, were very jealous. They broke some bottles and they put the

broken glass into the bowl with the rosewater and perfumes. When the eagle tried to wash in

the bowl, he was cut by the glasses. He was badly hurt, and got very angry. The princess was

very upset and couldn’t stop crying. In the morning, she wore men’s clothes, took an

ointment from the old woman and left for Venice. On the fourth day, the Prince became well.

To thank the “doctor,” he gave him a golden ring. The Princess did not say who she was and

returned to Cyprus. In the night she burned the last golden tuft. The eagle came and at first

he was very angry at her. But, when he saw the golden ring on her finger, he realized that she

was the doctor that cured him. He transformed into the Prince of Venice and they fell in love

again. They got married in Venice.

ARAPIS

Once upon a time there was a King with many riches and many servants. Amongst his

servants there was also a young black man. When the Queen gave birth to a little princess,

she invited the fairies of fate. The Fates stayed at the palace for three days and three nights.

The first fairy gave the girl beauty, the second intelligence, and the third fairy asked the King

the little girl to get married with the black man. The King was thinking of ways to get rid of

the black man. One day he asked one of his servants to take him far away, to kill him and

bring his eyes as a proof. The servants did what the King said but they didn’t kill him. After


a long journey the black man met a good Lord who learned him to read and to write. One

day he met a fairy and asked her to become white. Now a rich man, he left the work of the

lord and started travelling round the world. When he got fed up of travelling, he thought of

going back to his country. When the King saw the black man he didn’t recognize him, being

all white now. He also suggested making him his son in law. So the wedding took place with

great feasting.

____________________

STORIES FROM GREECE

JOHN AND THE AXE

Once upon a time there was a woman who had a daughter. When it was time for the girl to

get married, her mother found a good young boy for her daughter and they got engaged. One

night, while they were having dinner, they ran out of wine. The girl willingly went down to

the cellar to get some wine from the barrel. As she leaned over the barrel, she noticed that the

axe was hanging over it. The girl was thinking that she will have a son and will be hurt by

this axe. So did her mother. The son in law found them crying for the unborn John and he

was very mad. The next day he took his saddle bag and left for a foreign country. He reached

a village. It was Sunday morning and he saw a lot of people outside the church of that

village. There was a wedding ceremony but the bride was very tall and she couldn’t get into

the church. The young man helped the bride and he realized that the world is full of stupid

people and he hurried back to his village to marry his fiancée.

LEILIGOUSTRA

In the old days, there was a widow who lived with her son. She worked very hard, so her son

could have everything and so he would never complain about being an orphan. As the years

passed by, the boy grew up and became a very strong and handsome lad. But even bigger

than his beauty and strength, was his kindness. One day the young boy decided to leave his

country. The next day before dawn, the boy took a backpack with some bread in it, his

father’s knife, and his mother’s blessing and left. One day, as he was walking in a meadow,

he saw something glittering. He went closer and saw it was a golden feather. He took the

golden feather, put it in his pocket and off he went again. When he reached the sea he sat

under a tree and fell asleep. In his sleep he heard a lot of noise, so he woke up. He saw

twelve wild-men chasing a wild horse. Then the man put his hand in his pocket, touched the

golden feather, and threw himself onto the wild-men. When they saw him, they were

frightened and ran away. So he rode the horse and continued his journey. After traveling a

long way, they arrived at a palace. He knocked on the door and a servant opened it. The

servants told the King about the feather and the King asked the young man to find the owner

otherwise he would take his head. The horse told to the young man that they had to bring a

Queen because she was the owner. The King fell in love with the Queen and she asked her to

marry him. The queen asked him to bring to her Leiligoustra. So it happened. The lad

brought leiligoustra. When the lad was left alone with the Queen, she opened her heart to

him and told him that she loved him. He was very happy, and they went to the Queen’s

palace to get married. He brought her mother to the kingdom, they told each other their

sufferings and then they hugged and kissed.

THE THREE BROTHERS

Once upon a time, there was a poor man who had three children. When he died, the only

property he had was a sickle, a cat, and a rooster. He left the sickle to his older son, the cat to

the second son, and the rooster to his youngest son. In the morning, they went on a journey

looking work and each followed a different path. The youngest son, who had the rooster, had

chosen a very long road and after a long time he arrived in a country where people were very


primitive. When the night fell, he saw people fleeing. They were leaving every night because

they wanted to find the day. The youngest son pulled out of the bag the rooster and said to

them that this rooster will bring them the day. They gathered around the rooster and waited.

At dawn the rooster crowed. They were shocked and asked why it was acting this way. The

youngest son told them that it would soon bring the day and in a while it begun to dawn. The

rooster crowed again and it became day. They were crazy with joy because they were spared

the trouble of going back and forth trying to find the day! They begged the boy to let them

have the rooster and they would give him any amount of gold he wanted. He asked for three

bags of gold.

THE POOR PEASANT AND ST. PETER

Once upon a time there was a very poor peasant who didn’t have any luck. So he decided to

leave his country. After walking for a long way the peasant reached a crossroad. A man was

sitting there. He was sent by God, but the peasant did not know it. They walked together for

one day and one night but they had forgotten to introduce themselves to each other. The

peasant’s name was John and the other one was Peter. They walked for another day and

night, until they got tired and sat under an olive tree to rest. John started to take the food out

of his bag, but Peter didn’t let him. He asked him to go to a nearby farm and tell the shepherd

that it was Peter’s request to provide him with a lamb. John did as he was told and the

shepherd gave him a well fed lamb. When Peter came back with the extra wood, they baked

the whole lamb and ate it. After a while they continued their journey. On their way, they

heard a King’s messenger announcing that the Princess was very sick and the King would

make very rich whomever healed her. Peter told John they should go to the palace and try to

heal the princess. When everything was ready, Peter, John and the Princess were locked in

the house. Peter put the Princess in the oven and burned her. 39 days later Peter took the ash

of the burned Princess and molded her again. On the 40th

day, Peter blew three times at the

molded Princess and she came alive. Later that day the King went to the house and knocked

on the door three times. When he was let in by Peter he found his daughter well and alive.

The King was happy. He ordered a big feast that lasted for days. When it was time for John

and Peter to leave, the King told them to go to his Treasury and take as much gold as they

wanted. John filled up his pockets and his bag and he told Peter to take as much gold as he

could. John went back to his house and was living a comfortable life with his family.

____________________

STORIES FROM POLAND

THE LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN DUCK

Lutek was a young shoemaker who lived near the Vistula River. Lutek was told by a man

that it was very easy to get money from a Golden Duck, living in the three hundred year old

Ostrogski palace. He went to the palace. He headed to the basement. To his amazement, a

duck was swimming there in the musty-smelling chamber. The duck swam to him and

turned into a beautiful princess. The shoemaker had never seen such a beautiful girl. She had

golden-blond hair and a radiant gold crown with precious jewels. Her long dress was made

of shiny brown velvet and white satin, and was decorated with flowers. The water suddenly

turned from muddy and dark, to clean and sparkling blue. The princess then gave him some

money in a brown velvet pouch. She told him that she had to spend all the money and that

they were only for his use. In the morning Lutek bought loads of new clothing. People did

not recognise him. He looked like a rich man. After shopping for a few hours, he had lunch

at one of Warsaw's finest taverns. Then he went to a bakery and bought some bread and

cakes. Lutek felt very good since his meal was excellent. He still had most of his ducats left,

so he hired a carriage to take him to the various places he wished to explore. Lutek was a

little afraid that he might get robbed. He gave a poor man some of his coins, forgetting what


the Princess had said. The wind came up and a whirlwind appeared and cold spread over

Lutek's body. He then saw the Princess once again. According to the legend, the shoemaker

lived many happy years. He was successful in his shoemaking business, found a wonderful

wife, whom he loved dearly, and they had many fine children and grandchildren.

WARS AND SAWA

A long, long time ago, when Poland was still covered by forests, the Mazovian lands were

ruled by the noble Prince Ziemomysł. He had a beautiful, brick-built palace, with richly

decorated chambers and a treasure-house overflowing with gold. The Prince often invited the

local society to splendid balls. The Mazovian forest was full of game and wild birds at that

time, and one day Ziemomysł decided to go hunting with his companions. so the hunters

pushed deep into the forest, and their power was such that the very trees seemed to part

before them. The hounds were barking, and time and again they found a new trail. The

buglers blew their horns with all their might, to bring ever more superior beasts out from the

undergrowth. Then Ziemomysł himself saw a gigantic antler in a strand of trees ahead. He

thought it had fallen to him to capture this exceptional animal, and set off on his horse to get

closer. He followed it, paying no attention to his companions and being careful not to startle

his prize. The Prince moved deeper into the dark, dense forest. Before the Prince realised it,

his company was nowhere to be seen. Night had fallen, however, and no matter how hard he

tried, he could not find his way back. He put his thoughts into deeds, and moved off in

search for a safe shelter for the night. He had not gone far when a settlement appeared before

his eyes. In every house a candle was glowing, smoke rose from the hearths, and the aroma

of freshly cooked food wafted through the air. Ziemomysł knocked on the door of one of the

cottages, and was about to ask for a bed for the night, but the entrance remained barred. The

Prince walked on. As he was wandering, his steps took him to the banks of the river Vistula.

Suddenly, he saw a tiny cottage. He gently knocked on the door. It immediately opened

wide, and before Ziemomysł’s eyes there appeared a very modest interior with a tiny hearth,

a table and two beds. Behind the table, there stood a pair of humbly dressed elderly folk,

welcoming him inside with a smile. Prince Ziemomysł entered the little cottage, but his hosts

did not recognise him in the candlelight. In the morning, at first light, Ziemomysł was ready

to renew his search for his castle. Before he left, however, he sought his hosts, to thank them

warmly for their hospitality. But there was not a living soul in the cottage. On the bank he

found Wars fishing and his wife Sawa repairing the nets. The Prince was moved at the sight

of the two elderly folk working, and he offered them a riverside land, and he proclaimed that

it should be called Varsovia, so that their names would forever be in the hearts of those who

settle there.

____________________

STORIES FROM PORTUGAL

THE TOWER OF BABYLON

There was once a fisherman who had three daughters. One day, pulling his net out of the sea

he thought it felt very heavy. He was surprised to see that it had just one enormous fish in it.

This fish was talking. The fish asked the fisherman to bring to it his daughter. . He went

home and explained the situation to his daughter. She agreed to go with her father. Over the

next two days, when he was fishing, the same fish kept appearing asking him for his other

two daughters. When the fish had possession of all three girls, he gave great riches to the

fisherman. And if he sometimes cast his net in the sea for amusement, nobody else caught

fish but him. Some time passed by, and a son was born to the fisherman who grew up to be a

man. The boy asked his father about his three sisters. The father told him what had happened

and the boy said that he would go and look for them. After traveling a long way, he came

across three boys who were squabbling. The boys were fighting because of a pair of boots, a


blanket and a key. The boy suggested selling the objects to him. They agreed, and the

fisherman’s son gave them a lot of money, ending their dispute. The boy went to his oldest

sister. She looked very happy to see him and his husband told him that any time he will need

help he can call him. Afterwards, the boy went to the house of his youngest sister, who was

the King of Birds’ wife and the King of Birds gave him a feather from his wings. The boy,

content to have seen his sisters and the considerable riches they had given him, felt he could

return to his father’s house; but, getting lost on the way after a long walk, he noticed a huge

tower and asked what tower it was. It was the tower of Babylon. The boy went to the tower

and there he met a beautiful girl who had for company an old man. The girl told everything

to the boy and he went straightaway in search of the coffin and everything else the old man

had spoken of. He called his sisters’ husbands and they helped him find the coffin. With the

key he had bought from the three brothers he managed to open the coffin. Soon he had the

egg, which he broke on the old man’s forehead, though he roared so much it shook heaven

and earth. The old man died, the boy married the girl and took her to his father’s house. He

was reunited with his sisters and they all lived to be very rich and very happy.

THE ENCHANTED MOOR

A man was travelling, when he reached a land and asked for shelter. But no one welcomed

him. There was an empty rich house. Something had scared off the family that used to live in

it. The man stopped there and sat on a balcony relaxing, until it was night. While he was

sleeping, a gold ring was taken off his finger and another ring was put on it. When he woke,

he noticed that his ring was changed. Then he went in and lied on the bed. He felt movement

in the bed, as if a person wanted to lie next to him. It was a woman, the Moor. Only this man

could save her from the spell. The man stayed for three days and at the end of the three days,

when everything happened as the enchanted Moor had said, he found the three pouches of

money. The enchanted Moor was nowhere to be found. He bought land which he gave to the

poor. Then he continued his journey. Finally, he reached the land of the Moors. He bought a

farm there. Meanwhile the daughter of the Moor’s lord was to be married. They invited him

to the wedding. He happened to look at the bride’s finger and recognised the ring that had

been replaced in the enchanted palace. As soon as she saw it, she recognised it. She married

the man who had saved her and the other man went away.

PETER AND PETE

In another age there was a prince called Peter who had a milk brother called Pete. The two

lived as if they were real brothers and had sworn that they would stand by one another

whatever challenges they faced. Peter was about to leave for a foreign kingdom to marry a

truly beautiful Princess. Pete was supposed to accompany him, but as he preferred to travel

by land rather than by sea. Pete travelled many miles. Then it grew dark and he realised that

he had to spend the night by the road under some trees. But as he was lying down he heard

some voices from the trees that said weird things about the princess. When Pete heard this he

decided to warn the prince immediately. He decided to save the Princess, even if he was to

turn into rock. Pete went to warn Prince Peter about the calamities awaiting the Princess. As

Pete was telling what he heard on his journey, he was becoming a stone statue! Some fairies

told Peter that Pete could only become a man if Peter’s blood was poured over him. Peter cut

a finger to save his brother. But, while Pete was becoming a man, Peter was turning into a

statue. When Pete saw this, he asked a witch how to break the spell and she said that he had

to collect the blood of a dragon. Pete accomplished this task very well and the prize he won

was to marry a Princess.

a’ · 2012-12-17 · a democratic european citizenship that encourages tolerance and respect for...

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