"DEATH IN A NUT" STORY

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"DEATH IN A NUT" STORY & SOURCES

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• Books about "Death in a Nut" story
• SOS - Searching Out Stories and Info - "Death in a Nut"
~~Advice/References - Storytellers, Teachers, Librarians


 

BOOKS ABOUT "DEATH IN A NUT" STORY

Death in a Nut by Eric Maddern with Paul Hess (illus). (2005 - Ages 4-8)
A feisty boy learns a powerful lesson about life and death in this beautifully illustrated story based on a Scottish folktale. When Jack meets Old Man Death, he stands firm. "You're not taking my mother!" he cries, and piles into Death with his fists. With each punch, Death gets smaller and smaller until Jack is able to squeeze him inside a hazelnut shell. He throws the nut far out to sea, and goes home. Suddenly trouble begins... What has Jack done?

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SOS - SEARCHING OUT STORIES AND INFORMATION ABOUT "DEATH IN A NUT" STORY
Advice, Discussion and References from Storytellers, Teachers, Librarians
(excerpts from Storytell posts plus original research)


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1) Query: I am looking for a source to the folktale "Death in a Nut." I'd also like to know the story's country of origin.

Responses:

a) "Death in a Nut" can be found in: King and the Lamp: Scottish Traveller Tales (Canongate Classics, 96) by Duncan Williamson.

I also know of a similar story where a boy manages to trap the "Devil in a Nut."When the nut is later broken into many pieces, everyone who had their mouth open at the time gets a little bit of the Devil on their tongue and these people were the first storytellers. I think this version is Scandinavian, but I don't have a source.

b) The name of the Duncan Williams book is A Thorn in the King's Foot: Folktales of the Scottish Travelling People (Penguin Folklore Library).

c) There is a version of the tale in Asbjornsen & Moe's collection of Norwegian Folktales (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library). But without the ending of somebody getting the pieces of nut into them. In Norwegian it's called "Gutten og fanden," which translates to "The boy and the devil" in English. According to the typology of Aarne & Thompson you can find the stories under the type AT 330 B - The blacksmith and the devil; the devil is locked up in a small space. We have got several different versions of the story in our Finnish and Finnish/Swedish folklore collections. In one of the books it's written: "The story, that often is formed like a legend, is probably not found in Europe until 16th or 17th century. Literature: R. Christiansen: Studies in Irish and Scandinavian Folktales. (1959).

d) "Death in a Nut"
This story will always be special for me. Earlier this year, Peter Clarke, a friend and fellow storyteller here in a Sheffield (England), died. Later his friends and colleagues gathered to celebrate the different strands of his life. The storytelling strand was represented by 'Death in a nut' which was one of his favourites - and it fell to me to tell it. I have never been so nervous about telling a story in my life ! But people did say afterwards that it helped them. I have heard various versions but mine is influenced by one I heard from Taffy Thomas.

Bones:

While his mother lies dying, Jack meets Death heading for their cottage. He grabs Death's scythe and uses it to beat him over the head until he is small enough to be stuffed into a walnut shell. Jack throws the shell out to sea. He finds his mother well. While she lights the stove he heads off to town to buy some bacon for a celebration breakfast. But the butcher is unable to slaughter any animals . He fears his business is ruined. Jack has to go home without the bacon. On the way he tries to pull a cauliflower from a field to be some sort of breakfast. But none of the crop can be taken out of the soil. He finds his mother ankle deep in matches: she hasn't been able to light the stove. Jack tells his mother about his meeting with Death. She tells him that everyone has a time to be born and a time to die, that he has deprived her of that moment. That without death in the world nothing can change, nothing can be born. She says she has taught him all her stories and wise things, and it's time for him to make his own way. Jack retrieves the shell and releases Death. He returns to find his mother dead. He fetches their friends and neighbours and they have a meal at which they tell stories of all the happy and some of the sadder times they had with Jack's mother. Then they bury her in the earth. Jack takes the little money they had saved and walks out into the world, to other adventures and other stories.

e) There are many versions of the "death held captive" story, and my favorite is one told by Duncan Williamson in A Thorn in the King's Foot: Folktales of the Scottish Travelling People (Penguin Folklore Library). The story is called "Death in a Nutshell." When death is non-operative not only does no one die, but there is also no food - eggs won't crack, the butcher can't kill animals of course, but gardeners can't pull vegetables out of the ground either. You're talking about stories for a retirement party, as I recall, so the mention of death is not tabu. I don't even know how touchy people in homes for the elderly would be - I shouldn't think they'd be bothered. I have told a story about King Solomon (given an opportunity to drink from the water of eternal life but, on the advice of the fox, rejecting it: "Better to die now, while everyone will be crying and asking "Oh, why did he die?" than to live on until they all cry, "Oh, why didn't he die?") to a group of very elderly, very infirm members of my kibbutz; no negative reaction.
Lois Tzur

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Created 2004; last update 5/26/09