The Gingerbread Man

The Gingerbread Man is an English fairy tale about a gingerbread man that comes to life. It exists in several variants, in which the piece of food is not always the same. Joseph Jacobs collected two variants; in "English Fairy Tales", it is a Johnny Cake (sweet cornbread), and in "More English Fairy Tales", a Scottish variant has a wee bannock.

The tale may have originated in Scandinavia, where it is known as "The Fleeing Pancake."

ynopsis

In the story, an elderly couple live in a little house. The wife one day decides to bake a biscuit. She takes the gingerbread dough and turns it into the shape of a man and bakes it. She then decorates it to give him eyes, shirt buttons, a mouth and other accessories.

When the gingerbread man is cooked, the couple go to eat him. He comes to life and runs away, yelling "Don't eat me." The couple try to stop him but he jumps out the window yelling "Run, run, run as fast you can! You can't catch me, I'm The Gingerbread Man!" They chase after him.

He runs into the woods where he meets a pig, who wants to eat him. The Gingerbread Man runs from the pig yelling "Run, run, run as fast you can! You can't catch me, I'm The Gingerbread Man!"

He is chased by the pig until he runs into a cow, who also wants to eat him. He once again yells his catchphrase and keeps running. He meets a horse, who also wants to eat him. But he yells again and keeps running.

With the couple, the pig, cow, and horse all chasing him, he stays ahead of them all until he comes to a river. He can't cross it as it would make him soggy and fall apart. With the hungry animals chasing him he has to figure out a way across the river. He meets a fox there who offers to help him. The fox tells him to get on his back and the fox then swims through the river. The fox tells him that the water is getting deeper and he'll have to get up onto his head. The fox continues to do this until The Gingerbread Man is on his nose. He then tosses The Gingerbread Man into the air and catches him in his mouth before eating him.

Variants

The Johnny Cake, in the Jacobs version, rolls rather than runs, and the fox tricks it by pretending to be deaf and unable to hear its taunting verse.

In other versions the gingerbread man does not look tasty and he would not eat him. The gingerbread man takes this moment to rest in his apparent safety. Just when he sits down, the fox eats him.

Adaptations

Jasper Fforde's "The Big Over Easy" and "The Fourth Bear", noir/nursery rhyme cross-genre novels, include the Gingerbread Man as a serial killer.

"The Stinky Cheese Man" in Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith's book of the same name is an adaptation where the Gingerbread Man is replaced by a man made of Stinky Cheese that no one chases.

Stephen King's "The ginberbread girl" short story published in the Squire Magazine (July, 07). http://www.esquire.com/fiction/fiction/gingerbread0707

The Russian version of the story, "Kolobok", is very similar, but the title character is a ball of dough.

External links

* [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/gingerbread/index.html SurLaLune Fairy Tales.com: "The Gingerbread Man" with annotations, illustrations, modern interpretations and more]
* [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/jacobs/english/johnnycake.html "Johnny-Cake"]
* [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/jacobs/moreenglish/weebannock.html "The Wee Bannock"]