The Great Flood

There was once a widow with one son, a gentle, good-natured boy whom everybody liked. One day he came to his mother looking glum. “Every other child has a grandmother,” he said. “I am the only one who has none, and it makes me sad.”

“Then we shall find you one,” his mother promised.

Not long afterward a beggar-woman came to their door, bent with age and very weak. The moment the boy saw her he said, “You will be my grandmother!” He ran to his mother. “There is an old beggar-woman outside, and I want her to be my grandmother.” His mother agreed and invited the old woman in, though she needed help washing and caring for herself.

“Come,” said the boy, “let us give Grandmother a bath.” So the two of them washed her. Her hair was full of burrs, and they picked out every one and dropped them into a jar until the jar was full to the brim.

“Do not throw those away,” the old woman told them. “Bury the jar in the garden, and do not dig it up until the great flood comes.”

“When will the great flood come?” the boy asked.

“When the eyes of the two stone lions in front of the prison turn red,” said his grandmother. “That is when the flood will come.”

The boy hurried off to look at the lions, but their eyes were still plain stone. His grandmother gave him one more instruction: “Make a little wooden boat and keep it shut in a little box.” He did that too. After that he ran to the prison every single day to check on the lions, and the people in the street wondered what he was up to.

One day, as he trotted past the poultry-butcher’s stall, the butcher called out to ask why he was forever running to look at the lions. “When their eyes go red, the great flood will come,” the boy explained. The butcher only laughed. But early the next morning he took some chicken blood and smeared it over the lions’ eyes.

When the boy saw that the lions’ eyes were red, he raced home and told his mother and grandmother. “Quick,” said the grandmother, “dig up the jar and take the little boat out of its box.” They dug up the jar and found it full of the finest pearls, and the little boat began to swell, growing bigger and bigger until it was a real ship.

“Take the jar and climb aboard,” said the grandmother. “When the flood comes, you may rescue every creature that the water sweeps toward you. But do not rescue human beings.” They climbed into the ship, and at that moment the grandmother vanished.

Then the rain began. It fell harder and harder until there were no separate drops at all, only one great curtain of water pouring down over everything.

A dog came floating by, and they pulled him aboard. Soon a pair of mice drifted up with their babies, all squeaking with terror, and these were rescued as well. The water climbed to the rooftops. On one roof a cat stood with her back arched, mewing miserably, and they took her in too. Still the flood rose, until it reached the treetops. A raven perched in one tree, flapping and cawing loudly, and they saved him. At last a swarm of bees came by, so soaked that they could barely fly, and the bees were brought aboard as well.

Finally a man came drifting past on the waves. “Mother, let us save him too!” cried the boy. His mother did not want to. “Didn’t Grandmother tell us not to save people?” But the boy said, “We will save him anyway. I pity him, and I cannot bear to watch him float away in the water.” So they rescued the man as well.

Little by little the water went down. They climbed out of the ship and said goodbye to the man and the animals. The ship shrank back to its tiny size, and they put it away in its box.

But the man had set his heart on the pearls. He went to the judge and accused the boy and his mother, and both of them were thrown into prison. Then the mice came and gnawed a hole through the prison wall. The dog crept through the hole carrying meat, and the cat brought bread, so the prisoners did not go hungry. The raven flew away and came back with a letter for the judge. A god had written it, and it said: “I walked among people in the shape of a beggar-woman, and this boy and his mother took me in. The boy treated me like his own grandmother and was not too proud to wash me when I was dirty. For that reason I carried them safely through the great flood with which I destroyed the wicked city they lived in. Set them free, judge, or misfortune will fall on you.”

The judge had the two prisoners brought before him and asked what they had done and how they had come through the flood. They told him the whole story, and every word matched the god’s letter. So the judge punished the man who had accused them and let them both go free.

When the boy was grown, he came to a crowded city where people said the princess meant to choose a husband. To find the right man, she had veiled herself and sat down in a litter, and her litter was carried into the market square among many others exactly like it. A veiled woman sat in every one, with the princess somewhere among them, and whoever picked out the right litter would win her as his bride. The young man went to try his luck. When he reached the square, he saw the bees he had saved from the flood all swarming around one particular litter. He walked straight up to it, and there, sure enough, sat the princess. Their wedding was held, and they lived happily ever after.

Where this story comes from

“The Great Flood” is chapter X of Richard Wilhelm’s The Chinese Fairy Book, translated by Frederick H. Martens (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1921), in the opening section of nursery fairy tales.

Wilhelm notes that the tale comes from oral tradition and seems to rest on an old flood legend. He compares it with the Grimm story “The Queen of the Bees,” where grateful animals also help a kind young man win a princess.

Read the original: The Chinese Fairy Book (Project Gutenberg)

Reading guidance: older readers. Includes a flood that destroys a city, a divine command to withhold rescue, betrayal and false imprisonment. The story’s judgment of a city is a mythic claim, not an explanation of why real people suffer disasters.

Reading the story closely

The boy’s first generous act creates a chosen family, and his rescue of the drowning man extends care beyond the grandmother’s warning. The man’s later betrayal does not make the boy responsible for it. The letter says the flood destroyed a wicked city, but the narrative does not show the lives of everyone who died; readers need not treat catastrophe as proof of guilt.

Make a rescue-and-return map. Mice open a route, dog and cat bring food, raven carries a message, and bees identify a litter. Which needs are met by physical access, nourishment and information? Add the rescued man’s response separately so one betrayal does not stand for all people.

Questions to ask

• Why does the boy want the old beggar-woman as his grandmother?
• The boy disobeys his grandmother by saving the man. Was he right to do it? What happens because of it?
• How does each animal repay the family for saving it?

More stories like this

• The Cave of the Beasts — another Wilhelm nursery tale of a child and dangerous creatures
• The Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck — a Wilhelm tale that contrasts changing fortune with a mother’s kindness
• The White Snake — a Grimm tale of grateful fish, ants and ravens