# Stone Soup _Nils Gabriel Djurklou_ · 6 min read · ages 4-10 A hungry tramp talks his way into a stingy old woman’s cottage and offers to make soup from nothing but a smooth stone, then coaxes her, one ingredient at a time, into turning it into a real feast. Delighted at her own thrift, she shares her best food and bed with him, and sends him off the next morning grateful for the lesson. --- A tramp was making his way through a deep forest, with the dark coming on and no roof in sight, when he caught the flicker of a light between the trees. It came from a small cottage with a fire burning cheerfully on the hearth. He knocked, and out came an old woman, wrapped tight against the cold. “Good evening, and well met,” said the tramp, tipping his hat. She wanted to know where in the world he had come from. “South of the sun and east of the moon,” he said, “and now heading home at last, for I believe I have seen every corner of the world except this one parish.” He asked whether she might spare him a corner of the floor for the night. She was not having it. Her husband was away, her cottage was no inn for passing strangers, and besides, she said, there was not a crumb of food in the whole house. But the tramp begged so sweetly and pleaded so long, like a hungry dog scratching at the door, that at last she gave in and let him lie down by the fire. Once inside, he saw quickly enough that she was not nearly as poor as she made out. She was simply careful with what she had, more careful than most. Still, in his warmest voice, he asked whether she might find him a little something to eat. “And where would I get that?” she said. “I have not had a bite myself since morning.” “Poor granny, you must be half starved,” said the tramp, all sympathy. “Well then, it seems it will have to be me feeding you, instead of the other way round. Lend me a pot, would you?” Curious despite herself, she brought him one. He filled it with water and coaxed the fire up hot and bright, then reached into his pocket and drew out a small, smooth, round stone. He turned it over three times in his palm and dropped it into the pot with a plop. “And what, exactly, is that meant to become?” she asked. “Stone soup,” said the tramp, stirring away with the porridge stick as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. She had never in her life heard of making soup from a stone, and her curiosity got the better of her stinginess. “It generally makes a fine broth,” the tramp told her, “though this batch will run thin, since I have had to use the same stone all week.” He gave a little shrug and a little rhyme: “A stone makes broth, but broth grows thin, a handful of oatmeal would thicken it in.” Well, she could not have that, not when a good broth was so nearly within reach. Off she went and came back with fine oatmeal, and he stirred it into the pot. “Now that,” he said, tasting it, “would be good enough to set before company. Though a bit of salted beef and a few potatoes would make it fit for gentlefolk.” So she found beef and potatoes too, and in they went, and the whole cottage began to smell like a kitchen with something worth waiting for. “Grand enough for the finest table in the land,” he said, and she marveled at it, shaking her head. “All from one little stone!” “A little barley now, and a drop of milk,” he said, “and we could serve this to the king himself. It is exactly what he takes of an evening, I happen to know, having once served in the royal kitchens myself.” Wide-eyed, she hurried out to her own cow, freshly calved, and brought back barley and warm milk both. He stirred it all in, slow and solemn as any cook in a palace, and she watched him as if he were working magic in her own kitchen. “One stone,” she murmured to herself, “and look what it is turning into.” At last he lifted the stone out of the pot with the ladle. “There,” he said. “Now it is a proper feast. Though mind you, the king and queen always take a dram alongside it, and a bit of good bread, and a clean cloth spread on the table besides.” By then the old woman felt rather grand herself, and she was not about to be outdone by any king. Out came brandy and glasses, butter and cheese, smoked meat and all, until her little table looked fit for a wedding. Never in her life had she eaten such a supper, nor tasted such soup, and every bit of it, she told herself, from a single stone. She was so delighted at having learned such a thrifty trick that she could not do enough for her guest. They ate and drank together, laughing over the wonder of it, until they were both drowsy and full. When he made to settle down on the floor as before, she would not hear of it. A guest who could cook like that deserved a proper bed, she said, and a proper bed is what he got. In the morning she gave him coffee, a dram to warm him for the road, and a bright coin besides. “Thank you for what you have taught me,” she said. “I will live well from now on, now that I know how to make soup from a stone.” “It is not hard at all,” said the tramp, with a wink and one more little rhyme, “a stone in the pot won’t feed you plain, it is what you add that makes it worth the pain.” And with that he tipped his hat and went on his way. The old woman stood in her doorway a long while, watching him grow small down the road, and smaller still, until the forest took him. “Such people,” she said at last, shaking her head, “do not grow on every bush.” --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/stone-soup - Source: The Old Woman and the Tramp, from Djurklou’s Fairy Tales from the Swedish (trans. H. L. Brækstad), in Tales of Laughter, ed. Wiggin & Smith (Project Gutenberg #54734) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54734) - Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: The Old Woman and the Tramp, from Djurklou’s Fairy Tales from the Swedish (trans. H. L. Brækstad), in Tales of Laughter, ed. Wiggin & Smith (Project Gutenberg #54734) — translation: author died 1904 (+70 passed); translator Hans Lien Brækstad died 1915 (+70 passed) - License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)