Keepers by The Compendium Company, LLC
The story
She is smaller than Ratoncito Pérez, grayer, and considerably more discreet. She works alone across the rooftops with a lantern, and she has an established professional opinion that haste is the enemy of the job. Nobody has ever heard her arrive. A very small number of children claim to have heard the lantern.
Where it actually comes from
The tooth-taking mouse is the older European tradition, long predating the winged fairy, and la petite souris is its French form. A clear literary ancestor is Madame d’Aulnoy’s “La Bonne Petite Souris” of 1697, in which a fairy takes the form of a mouse, hides under a pillow and knocks out a wicked king’s teeth — a good deal less gentle than the modern version. The custom of putting the tooth under the pillow for the mouse is documented across France, Belgium, Switzerland and French-speaking Canada, and it spread with the language.
What it does for a child
La Petite Souris is a gift for a bilingual or French-heritage family: the letter carries the language into a moment the child already cares about, which is worth more than a great deal of deliberate practice. Her particular lesson — that careful and slow beats fast — is also a genuinely useful counterweight for children who rush at things and give up when they go wrong.
The Good Little Mouse
A story to read aloud · about 5 minutes
Long ago in France, in the days of kings and queens in silk and lace, people told a story about two kingdoms that lay side by side. One was the Land of Joy, where King Joyeux and his kind Queen loved music, dancing and feasts. The other was the Land of Tears, ruled by a grumpy, greedy king who could not bear to see anyone happy.
The grumpy king was so jealous of the Land of Joy that he made trouble and more trouble, until at last he carried the good Queen away to his own kingdom. He shut her in a tiny room at the top of a tall tower. She had only a thin mattress on the floor, and every day her jailer brought her just three boiled peas and a little piece of black bread. And all day long the greedy king made her spin.
One day, as the Queen sat spinning, a pretty little mouse popped out of a hole in the wall.
“Alas, my little darling,” said the Queen, “what have you come looking for? I have only three peas for myself the whole day long.” Then, because she was kind, she held one out. “Here, little darling, eat this. I have nothing more, and I give it to you gladly.”
The little mouse nibbled the pea. Then it ran here and there, and danced and capered like a little monkey, until the Queen smiled for the first time in a very long while.
When the mouse had gone, the Queen went to put the cover back on her empty dish. But the dish was not empty anymore. It had filled up with all sorts of good things to eat!
After that the mouse came every day, and every time the Queen shared, her dish filled up with good food.
At last the Queen said, “Little mouse, I am sorry that I have so little to give to such a dear friend.”
The mouse answered in a voice as clear as a bell. “Do not be sorry, Madam. I am not so unworthy of your friendship as you think.” And in the blink of an eye, the little mouse became a lovely Fairy.
“You shared the last thing you had with a hungry little mouse,” said the Fairy. “That is how I knew your heart was good. From now on, I will be your friend and look after you.”
Now the grumpy king heard that the Queen was not sad anymore, and it made him furious. He came stomping up the tower stairs to make more trouble for her. But the Fairy made herself invisible and gave him a push. Down he tumbled, bump, bump, bump! When he sat up, four of his teeth had come out!
The grumpy king was so busy holding his sore mouth that he forgot all about the Queen. The Fairy tapped the great tower door three times with her little wand of hazelwood, and it flew wide open. Then she carried the Queen away through the sky in her flying chariot, home to the Land of Joy, where the music and dancing began again.
Some people in France like to say that the Fairy never forgot those four teeth, and that is why the little mouse has been fond of teeth ever since. Nobody knows for certain whether that is how it all began.
But this much is true. In France, when a child’s tooth comes out, it is tucked under the pillow. In the night la petite souris, the little mouse, comes scampering to take it away, and she leaves a coin or a small treat in its place. She is tiny, she is quick, and she has a very good heart, just like the good little mouse who once danced for a Queen in a tower. As the old story says, “To all things be kind.”
Adapted from Madame d’Aulnoy; translated by J. R. Planché, The good little Mouse (La Bonne Petite Souris), in Fairy Tales by the Countess d’Aulnoy (1856). Public domain. Read the original.
More from the story
A few more pictures to look at together.
