Given that Thanksgiving is now being celebrated across the colonies (except by those who don’t celebrate it), and in view of the fact that we’ve been very quiet here recently, today we are proud to present another classic European folktale concerning the Christmas Wasp.

Like many other such tales, this one was collected by Professor Ernst Stellmacher, author of Insekten-Archäologie für Frauen (1873), some time in the 1860s, and probably carries a heartwarming message for children everywhere…

THE TAILOR OF BREMEN

There once was a poor tailor who lived in the town of Bremen, along with his wife and seven children. Originally he had intended to live in Düsseldorf, but he was so poor that he couldn’t afford the extra letters, especially with the severe tax on umlauts at the time. There – in Bremen, not in Düsseldorf, you can forget about the geography stuff now – this simple, honest tailor made marvellous suits for the rich merchants of the town, and beautiful gowns for their wives, who all sported inexplicable duelling scars (the reason for that won’t come up, either – you do understand what ‘inexplicable’ means, right?)

It was often said around town that the tailor’s clothes were some of the finest in the land – and it was also said that being simple and honest was how you stayed poor in those days, especially if rich merchants kept ‘forgetting’ to pay their bills. This being so, the family augmented what little the tailor made through his wife’s spinning, which occasionally attracted the interest of passing travellers.

“Ach! Why is that old woman round and round going? Wunderbar!” they would cry, and throw a few pfennigs into the children’s open mouths.

Despite this, one December day the tailor found that they had no money left to buy even a loaf of bread. So he left his house and walked down to the church to pray that God might ease his poverty, but he was unable to get in for the crowds of Calvinists, Lutherans, Anabaptists and other dissenters busy nailing proclamations to the church doors. What was he to do? Just then, a finely-scarred merchant’s wife saw the little tailor crouching by the church entrance, and took pity on him.

“This very morning,” she said, “I had a vision of the Blessed Emma of Stiepel, who is, as you know, the patron saint of Bremen – and not of that stupid Düsseldorf place. She came to me while I was ironing the children, and said that I would be granted a fine meadow, which I should give to the poorest people of the town.”

“A vision!” said the tailor. “But…”

The merchant’s wife nodded. “Ja, I thought that was a dumb idea as well. What should they do with a meadow? Eat it? So instead, I made a pact with the Devil, and he gave me hundreds of golden thalers, on each of which can be seen the image of the sacred Weihnachtswespe (or ‘Christmas Wasp’, for any foreigners reading this). These coins I give to you, that you and your family might prosper!”

At which she opened her silk gown, and out flew not coins, but a large swarm of irascible insects, mad as hell at being confined in the dress by a delusional merchant’s wife who had just spent three solid days and nights in her husband’s wine cellar, knocking back the hock and Glühwein.

And darting and stinging, the wasps drove both the poor tailor and the drunken merchant’s wife down the street, never to be seen again…

As for the tailor’s wife and children, they too were visited by the Blessed Emma of Stiepel, but – being neither drunk nor simple – they took up the offer of a meadow, applied for planning permission, and went into real estate, eventually owning half of Bremen. And some of the nicer parts of  Düsseldorf.

Thus even today, those who have been fooled by a suspiciously generous gift, or who have done badly in a transaction with a merchant, refer to themselves as having been ‘stung’… or something like that.

N.B. For those who like to know real stuff, Emma of Stiepel was born somewhere between 975-980 and died 3 December 1038, being known for her good works. More details tracing the myth of the Christmas Wasp can be found here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/folklore-origins-christmas-wasp/