Run pumpkin, run

I haven’t seen an old woman or an old man, neither ancient nor old. Run Pumpkin, Run. Run quicker little pumpkin! The pumpkin responded as it went rolling along the way, before the wolf’s, bear’s and lion’s astonished look. Who is inside, mocking the three wild beasts?

Run pumpkin, run is a popular Portuguese tale of a great tradition in our neighbouring country, and which, however, had never been published in Spanish. It tells the story of an old woman who, on her way to her granddaughter’s wedding, comes across a wolf, a bear and a lion that want to eat her up. She convinces the animals to wait for her on her way back from the wedding reception and, after the celebration the granddaughter and the old woman come up with a very original plan to mock the three wild beasts.

Writers of the stature of Alice Vieira and compilers of traditional Portuguese tales such as Adolfo Coelho, S. Romero, A. Oliveira or L. Vasconcellos, have collected variants of this story throughout Portugal and even Brazil, with stories they have called A vella e os lobos, O macaco e a cabaça (in the Brazilian variant), A cabacinha or A vella que ia na calabaça e encontrou um lobo. In some of these versions the animals eat the grandmother, but in this version we opted for an ending in which the old woman and the granddaughter, combining wit, humor and imagination, manage to overcome the conflicts and give the three beasts what they deserve. With an agile rhythm and using “lenga lenga” -almost a tongue twister-, present in the Portuguese versions that still circulate today, this tale offers many expressive possibilities of narration and theatrical representation.

André Letria, ilustrador de gran prestigio en Portugal y ganador en varias ocasiones del Premio Nacional de Ilustración del país vecino, crea personajes con mucha fuerza y personalidad, acentuando su expresividad y enriqueciendo las imágenes con un imaginario humorístico muy definido.

Text by Eva Mejuto, from a popular Portuguese tale Illustrations by André Letria