The Robin and the Evergreens

 In the week before Christmas (2025) I was invited to join two other birdwatchers the following day to clean out the nesting boxes at a Darmstadt kindergarten. While this was an opportunity to tell the children a tale, I almost never tell to such young children. A call to the ever-helpful Storytell listserv was the solution: their first suggestions came within a couple of hours – including this fable (many thanks, Allison Galbraith).

The story was new to me. So with Allison’s brief outline I was able to sit with the children after cleaning the boxes and see how the story developed with my listeners. Spontaneous storytelling is often so enjoyable, and the tale demanded to be put back into English and recorded.

Subsequent research into its provenance shows the story is fairly well known, with a number of versions online. However, this page on the Travelling Talesman’s website reveals a darker side. From its apparent origins as a Cherokee pourquoi tale, it was appropriated by Florence Holbrook for The Book of Nature Myths (1904, Chicago). It is certainly worth reading the book’s Preface as a reminder of the condescension of the colonialist mindset common at that time.

Further videos for young children.