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foodandfolklore · 5 months

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The Little Red Hen

I had an random memory pop into my head of my mom reading the Little Red Hen to a group of children. It's weird cause I'm not sure how old I am in this memory. My mom did a lot of volunteer work with our schools and helped out in field trips. I feel very young in this memory since the children around me are so young and I am so enthralled in the story. But the longer I think on it, the more I think this is when I was in my teens or early 20s working with her at a not for profit daycare.

So, with this brain worm going on, I figured I'd share the story of the little red hen. Story was first written in a US Children's Magazine by Mary Mapes Dodge in 1874. It was a short story, meant to communicate the idea that hard work will pay off. A full illustrated book version was published in 1918 by Florence White Williams. Since I wasn't able to find any copies of the story from the Magazine, I'll instead share Williams's version.

A few things about this story stood out to me, where if you look at the time it makes a lot of sense. Most modern versions of this story don't have the Little Red Hen have any chicks to look after, but in this version she does. And the mother hen struggles with the balance of looking after her chicks and making her bread. Even pointing how how the chicks feel neglected.

But the Mother Hen is not shamed by the author for it in the story. This story came out right after a massive war. Millions of people had died. Husbands and fathers were not all returning and Mothers were left to figure out how to be the new breadwinner. I think the author felt a great amount of empathy for these families, and had the opinion that communities should work together to help.

There have been lots of revisions and story tweaks over time, based on what the time period and culture expects from workers. For example, there was a version made in the 70s where the Hen was forced to share her bread with the lazy animals who did not help to make it. Soon, she lost the incentive to work and poverty hit the farm. It was written with an anti communism mindset.

Wheat Bread have good grounding properties, as well Kinship, Abundance and Prosperity. The breaking and sharing of bread is an action that invokes Peace and Friendship.

The Little Red Hen

A Little Red Hen lived in a barnyard. She spent almost all of her time walking about the barnyard in her picketty-pecketty fashion, scratching everywhere for worms.

She dearly loved fat, delicious worms and felt they were absolutely necessary to the health of her children. As often as she found a worm she would call “Chuck-chuck-chuck!” to her chickies.

When they were gathered about her, she would distribute choice morsels of her tid-bit. A busy little body was she!

A cat usually napped lazily in the barn door, not even bothering herself to scare the rat who ran here and there as he pleased.

And as for the pig who lived in the sty—he did not care what happened so long as he could eat and grow fat.

One day the Little Red Hen found a Seed. It was a Wheat Seed, but the Little Red Hen was so accustomed to bugs and worms that she supposed this to be some new and perhaps very delicious kind of meat. She bit it gently and found that it resembled a worm in no way whatsoever as to taste although because it was long and slender, a Little Red Hen might easily be fooled by its appearance.

Carrying it about, she made many inquiries as to what it might be. She found it was a Wheat Seed and that, if planted, it would grow up and when ripe it could be made into flour and then into bread.

When she discovered that, she knew it ought to be planted. She was so busy hunting food for herself and her family that, naturally, she thought she ought not to take time to plant it.

So she thought of the Pig—upon whom time must hang heavily and of the Cat who had nothing to do, and of the great fat Rat with his idle hours, and she called loudly:

“Who will plant the Seed?”

But the Pig said, “Not I,” and the Cat said, “Not I,” and the Rat said, “Not I.”

“Well, then,” said the Little Red Hen, “I will.” And she did.

Then she went on with her daily duties through the long summer days, scratching for worms and feeding her chicks, while the Pig grew fat, and the Cat grew fat, and the Rat grew fat, and the Wheat grew tall and ready for harvest.

So one day the Little Red Hen chanced to notice how large the Wheat was and that the grain was ripe, so she ran about calling briskly: “Who will cut the Wheat?” The Pig said, “Not I,” the Cat said, “Not I,” and the Rat said, “Not I.” “Well, then,” said the Little Red Hen, “I will.” And she did.

She got the sickle from among the farmer's tools in the barn and proceeded to cut off all of the big plant of Wheat.

On the ground lay the nicely cut Wheat, ready to be gathered and threshed, but the newest and yellowest and downiest of Mrs. Hen's chicks set up a “peep-peep-peeping” in their most vigorous fashion, proclaiming to the world at large, but most particularly to their mother, that she was neglecting them.

Poor Little Red Hen! She felt quite bewildered and hardly knew where to turn.

Her attention was sorely divided between her duty to her children and her duty to the Wheat, for which she felt responsible.

So, again, in a very hopeful tone, she called out, “Who will thresh the Wheat?”

But the Pig, with a grunt, said, “Not I,” and the Cat, with a meow, said, “Not I,” and the Rat, with a squeak, said, “Not I.”

So the Little Red Hen, looking, it must be admitted, rather discouraged, said, “Well, I will, then.”

And she did.

Of course, she had to feed her babies first, though, and when she had gotten them all to sleep for their afternoon nap, she went out and threshed the Wheat. Then she called out: “Who will carry the Wheat to the mill to be ground?”

Turning their backs with snippy glee, that Pig said, “Not I,” and that Cat said, “Not I,” and that Rat said, “Not I.”

So the good Little Red Hen could do nothing but say, “I will then.” And she did.

Carrying the sack of Wheat, she trudged off to the distant mill. There she ordered the Wheat ground into beautiful white flour. When the miller brought her the flour she walked slowly back all the way to her own barnyard in her own picketty-pecketty fashion.

She even managed, in spite of her load, to catch a nice juicy worm now and then and had one left for the babies when she reached them. Those cunning little fluff-balls were so glad to see their mother. For the first time, they really appreciated her.

After this really strenuous day Mrs. Hen retired to her slumbers earlier than usual—indeed, before the colors came into the sky to herald the setting of the sun, her usual bedtime hour.

She would have liked to sleep late in the morning, but her chicks, joining in the morning chorus of the hen yard, drove away all hopes of such a luxury.

Even as she sleepily half opened one eye, the thought came to her that to-day that Wheat must, somehow, be made into bread.

She was not in the habit of making bread, although, of course, anyone can make it if he or she follows the recipe with care, and she knew perfectly well that she could do it if necessary.

So after her children were fed and made sweet and fresh for the day, she hunted up the Pig, the Cat and the Rat.

Still confident that they would surely help her some day she sang out, “Who will make the bread?”

Alas for the Little Red Hen! Once more her hopes were dashed! For the Pig said, “Not I,” the Cat said, “Not I,” and the Rat said, “Not I.”

So the Little Red Hen said once more, “I will then,” and she did.

Feeling that she might have known all the time that she would have to do it all herself, she went and put on a fresh apron and spotless cook's cap. First of all she set the dough, as was proper. When it was time she brought out the moulding board and the baking tins, moulded the bread, divided it into loaves, and put them into the oven to bake. All the while the Cat sat lazily by, giggling and chuckling.

And close at hand the vain Rat powdered his nose and admired himself in a mirror. In the distance could be heard the long-drawn snores of the dozing Pig.

At last the great moment arrived. A delicious odor was wafted upon the autumn breeze. Everywhere the barnyard citizens sniffed the air with delight.

The Red Hen ambled in her picketty-pecketty way toward the source of all this excitement.

Although she appeared to be perfectly calm, in reality she could only with difficulty restrain an impulse to dance and sing, for had she not done all the work on this wonderful bread?

Small wonder that she was the most excited person in the barnyard!

She did not know whether the bread would be fit to eat, but—joy of joys!—when the lovely brown loaves came out of the oven, they were done to perfection.

Then, probably because she had acquired the habit, the Red Hen called:

“Who will eat the Bread?”

All the animals in the barnyard were watching hungrily and smacking their lips in anticipation, and

the Pig said, “I will,” the Cat said, “I will,” the Rat said, “I will.”

But the Little Red Hen said, “No, you won't. I will.”

And she did.

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jimbuchan · 2 years

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The Future Has Taken Root In The Present

On the surface it may appear as though Crypto overall is on a see-saw type of movement (at best) or a sideways-downward progression (at worst). Many with short-term outlooks are assuming that the crypto market has passed them by, but behind the scenes there is a chess-game that is being played unlike any other with ramifications that will be felt in the years to come. In the eyes of the casual spectator or newcomer to the crypto space, the volatility that the market is experiencing may be enough to pull the ripcord and bail out for (so called) ‘greener' pastures. For the experienced crypto investor who knows better, this is par for the course, and like the major institutional players, they are thinking long-term, betting on the fortunes to be made in the post-volatile years to come. In other words, they understand that volatility is their friend as this is where the gains are made, but for the untrained eye, buying low when there is fear is much worse than buying high when the ‘elite’ (be it big-shots, celebrities or their ilk) have given their stamp of approval. However, when this happens, the jig is up as the majority would have already since jumped on board, with the profit-potential a distant memory. For the masses who fear volatility in the markets (no different than the investors who held Amazon, Google or eBay stock during the Dot Com era when it was risky), rather than focus their efforts in the sound business practices and foresight that these companies were building, they instead listened to the negativity, or even well-meaning acquaintances, while the steady hands who paid attention remained calm and took the flack by weathering the storm. For these folks, the old story 'The Little Red Hen' was not just a children's fable, but rather a blueprint of perseverance, toil and ultimate redemption. Investing and holding strong to your conviction, regardless of the crypto project, is hard and not for the faint of heart, but for those who are willing to see the vision and struggle through it, regardless of the hecklers or those trying to convince you otherwise will be the ones who realize the reward which is why so few will end up at the finish line. Will all projects make it - indeed the answer is an overwhelming NO, but therein lies the opportunity to which only you can make the decision and judge your own risk-reward threshold. So, what is going on behind the scenes? It can pretty much be summed-up in one word: Silence. In other words, while we cannot see physically what is occurring on a geo-political level, we do see the evidence of the vast amount of crypto that is being stockpiled. If it were more transparent such that these investments were being transferred to various markets or exchanges, that would be one thing, but the truth is that these digital assets are being bought and held. Here’s the facts:

90% of Bitcoin has already been mined

Of all Bitcoin that has been mined thus far, only 12% is available on Exchanges

In approximately the next 10 Years (currently June, 2022), 99% of all Bitcoin will have been mined - 10 years!

Getting back to the word ‘silence’, the above evidence speaks volumes and equates to only a single common denominator... crypto is being held, but not sold. What’s the take-away? They are holding out for higher prices. Period. Full Stop. While there are many things that are not known about the specifics of WHY they are holding out, it matters little because regardless of the reason, the simple truth is that they are, and that’s all the investor needs to know.

The problem however, is that this message is either being ignored, or just not being drummed as much as it should to the ones who should heed it the most. What IS being constantly communicated is quite the opposite, which is the sentiment of fear and confusion, which is as it should be in the minds of the major financial players making these proclamations, all in an effort to SELL NOW (so they can buy more). We’ve been told to not pay attention to the man behind the curtain, or “look here... don’t look there”, but in the end, it is up to the conscience of your own soul to separate fact from fiction and tell right from wrong. In this scenario, only diligent research into your project(s) of choice will be able to remove the haziness and ‘noise’. Yes, this means extra work and dedication to not only step out of your comfort zone, but also dedicate time that you don’t have to remain focused on the task, but if the prize is always in sight, the price pales in comparison. Keep squarely in mind... at all times that this is a new asset class, and the last asset-class which was created was hundreds of years ago, but this one has far-reaching advantages that the prior derivations simply cannot compete with such as Decentralization (trust-less nature), Immutability (cannot be stopped by the incumbent financial system) and Portability (can be sent anywhere in the world rapidly and without intermediaries). Add to this the fact that there is a finite amount, and you have an asset that, while in it’s teething period today, will be incredibly valuable, rare and widely accepted in the years to come... for those who see it.

Title image by Orion Pictures Excalibur via The Irish Times | Quote by Nicol Williamson The Little Red Hen by Mary Mapes Dodge | Street Art by Banksy

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