A litt le old woman and a litt le old man are sad because they don’t have any children. The old woman
decides to make a boy out of gingerbread, but as soon as he’s cooked, he jumps out of the oven and runs
away. First the woman and the old man, then a whole stream of other people and animals chase aft er
the gingerbread man. He runs on and teases them with a chant (“Run, run, as fast as you can...”), unti l
he reaches a river he can’t cross. A cunning fox off ers to help. As the water rises higher up the fox’s body,
the gingerbread man jumps from the fox’s tail to his back to his head, unti l – in four bites – the fox eats
him up.
The story itself is an old folk tale, fi rst seen in print in an American magazine in 1875. It has similariti es
to other European folktales such as The Runaway Pancake, but the Gingerbread Man’s defi ant song is
unique to the story and always very popular with children.