Merry Stories and Funny Pictures

In the last post I was talking about games we used to play when we were young.  Thinking about childhood rhymes and songs prompted me to remember an incident that occurred when I was about 12.

I used to have piano lessons with Miss Gray.  She was a plump, kind old woman who charged $12 a lesson and often, if I played well, would fall asleep.  She'd start awake at the end of each piece and turn the page with a little stick that she also used to point to notes and passages.
She'd also wake up if I played badly.  A very sensible teaching strategy, now that I think of it.

I was encouraged to arrive early for my lessons and often did so while the previous youngster was being taught.  The waiting room was her sun-porch and it contained ancient and smelly old books including an assortment of children's book from her childhood, which were placed out for us modern kids to read.  One was 'Struwwelpeter' written by Dr Heinrich Hoffman.

Before I show you some pages, here is the dedication, inviting children to be good so they will get this book for Christmas:

"When the children have been good,
That is, be it understood,
Good at meal-times, good at play,
Good all night and good all day—
They shall have the pretty things
Merry Christmas always brings.

Naughty, romping* girls and boys
Tear their clothes and make a noise,
Spoil their pinafores and frocks,
And deserve no Christmas-box.
Such as these shall never look
At this pretty Picture-book."

However, if you are lucky enough to get this book, here's a sample of what you'll find inside...

There were a series of illustrations and accompanying verse describing bad behaviour, and the results that could be expected.

This was what happened to Hans who didn't watch where he was going.  He fell in the canal and all the fishes laughed.  Luckily he was rescued but his writing book was not.

And because 'Suck-a-thumb' didn't stop this bad habit, the tailor came and cut his thumbs off completely.

This is the lass who would keep playing with matches.  She was burnt to death in the end.  Even her eyes were burnt.

But the one that impressed me most was Augustus who wouldn't eat his soup.  He ended up the size of a plum, and of course, died too.  It took only 5 days.

"Augustus was a chubby lad;
Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had:
And everybody saw with joy
The plump and hearty, healthy boy.
He ate and drank as he was told,
And never let his soup get cold.
But one day, one cold winter's day,
He screamed out "Take the soup away!
O take the nasty soup away!
I won't have any soup today."

Next day, now look, the picture shows
How lank and lean Augustus grows!
Yet, though he feels so weak and ill,
The naughty fellow cries out still
"Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I won't have any soup today."

The third day comes: Oh what a sin!
To make himself so pale and thin.
Yet, when the soup is put on table,
He screams, as loud as he is able,
"Not any soup for me, I say:
O take the nasty soup away!
I WON'T have any soup today."

Look at him, now the fourth day's come!
He scarcely weighs a sugar-plum;
He's like a little bit of thread,
And, on the fifth day, he was—dead!"

I never went so far as to actually enjoy 'StruwwelPeter', but confess to a continual morbid fascination with the horrific, detailed, cautionary stories and graphic images.  Perhaps it is because I sucked my thumb until I was about eleven, ate like a sparrow, and often didn't look where I was going...

The full title, incidentally, was "Struwwelpeter: Merry Stories and Droll Pictures".


*K. - see, no romping allowed.