Stone Soup Returns to London, 1812

← Origin of the Stone Soup Folktale

Pseudonymous Author: Momus Broadgrin

It looks as if the American version crossed back to Europe where it was reworked by another pseudonymous author into an “Irish” tale that was published in London in 1812. I cite the full title because it offers a sense of how the Stone Soup story was placed in its early years. It was not a children’s tale. It was folded into a genre of wit that can now seem a bit odd. The “Gloomy Times” will have referred to the Napoleonic War. The book was published in the ninth year of what would end up being a twelve-year war.

Irish Wit, or Post-Chaise Companion: Being an ECCENTRIC MISCELLANY of HIBERNIAN WIT, FUN, AND HUMOUR, Much the greater part NEVER BEFORE IN PRINT, With a Selection of such as may have appeared; Calculated for the Meridian of the UNITED KINGDOMS; and consisting of bon-mots, repartees, smart puns, high jokes, queer hoaxes, humorous anecdotes, laughing bulls, devilish good things, And various other Articles of INTELLECTUAL CONFECTIONARY, Adapted to the risible Muscles, and designed to dispel Care, PURGE MELANCHOLY, CURE THE SPLEEN, and Raise the drooping Spirits in these Gloomy Times.

Momus Broadgrin brought the story back to Europe, sort of. He made the tramps “Irish travelers” which means Gypsies. But the basic story remained true to type and the recipe is copied without a change from the version published in The American Magazine of Wit.

Take a large stone, put it into a sufficient quantity of water; properly season it with pepper and salt; add three or four pounds of good beef, a handful of pot-herbs, some onions, a cabbage, and three or four carrots; when the soup is made, the stone may be thrown away.¹

The Stone Soup story seems to have quickly become part of English literary culture and stayed there throughout the nineteenth century. After this first flurry of stories being printed, references to stone soup begin showing up in literature as references—which means authors could assume that everyone knew the story.

Next: The Modern Legacy →