Week 1 Storytelling: Shoetopia

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe;

She had so many children she didn’t know what to do;

She gave them some broth without any bread;

She whipped them all soundly and put them to bed

(Original Nursery Rhyme) 

A very long time ago there was a town at the edge of the land called Shoetopia. Everyone who lived in this town created beautiful shoes for a living that supplied all the neighboring towns. The people living here loved shoes so much that they even chose to live in giant shoes for their homes! Even though living in shoes caused the people of Shoetopia to smell like feet, they did not care for they loved their unconventional way of life.

                                                   

                                          Photograph of shoe structure found in 

                                          Kamala Nehru Park in India. 

                                          Source: Wikipedia

At the outskirts of Shoetopia there was an orphanage run by an old lady struggling to keep track with the thirty children living there. It was hard enough housing thirty children in a small boot, but to make matters worse she didn’t have enough money to feed them! So she resorted to feeding them soup every night for dinner before putting them to bed.

Like every other night she tucked each child into bed, kissed them on the forehead, turned off the lights, and went to bed herself. At the end of each day the woman was exhausted so she would fall into a deep deep sleep. Only the shrill noise of her alarm would be loud enough to wake her.

                                           

One curious child named Olaf was always getting in trouble and breaking the rules of the orphanage. All of the other children were scared of him so they didn’t take the time to get to know him very well. None of the children or even the old lady knew that Olaf had a true fear of feet and that living in this shoe and more importantly the town of Shoetopia was pure torture and caused him great anxiety on a daily basis. So, Olaf devised a plan to sneak out of the boot at night because he knew how hard it was to wake the old lady. Just to be safe he tip toed as quietly as he could past the other children and the old woman. To his surprise the front door was even unlocked! He quickly slipped through the door and made his way to the neighboring town of Hats Galore.

The next morning the old woman woke up and noticed that all the beds were made but one. At first she thought that one of the children was just being lazy and decided to go down for breakfast. She then knew something was wrong when one of the places at the table was empty! Immediately she realized that Olaf was missing, but since he was part of the orphanage program there wasn’t too much she could do. So she put missing signs all over Shoetopia, but Olaf was never to be seen again. It is said that he made it to the town of Hats Galore and is now famous for his outrageous hat designs all over the land!

Author’s note: The original rhyme just talks about an old woman living in a shoe and having so many children that she was overwhelmed. She then would feed them soup and put them to bed. The story is very simple but it made me wonder why the woman was living in a shoe in the first place. This one curious question is what got me started on a whole town of people living in shoes! My story is about a town called Shoetopia where everyone both lives in and makes shoes for a living. At the edge of the town there’s an orphanage ran by an old woman who is overwhelmed by the amount of children she has to take care of. One of her children has a fear of feet and decides to run away to a nearby town called Hats Galore where he becomes a successful hat maker.

Bibliography: This story is based on the nursery rhyme “The Old Lady who Lived in a Shoe” in The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang (1897).