The Gingerbread Man

"The Gingerbread Boy" first appeared in print in America in the May 1875, issue of St. Nicholas Magazine in a cumulative tale which, like "The Little Red Hen", depends on repetitious scenes featuring an ever-growing cast of characters for its effect.

The tale ends with a fox catching and eating the gingerbread man who cries as he is devoured, "I'm quarter gone...I'm half gone...I'm three-quarters gone...I'm all gone!

In some retellings, the Gingerbread Man taunts his pursuers with the famous line: The character of the runaway food exists in folktales.

[5] "The Pancake"[4] ("Pannekaken") was collected by Peter Asbjornsen and Jørgen Moe and published in Norske Folkeeventyr (1842-1844), and, ten years later, the German brothers Carl and Theodor Colshorn collected "The Big, Fat Pancake"[4] ("Vom dicken fetten Pfannekuchen") from the Salzdahlum region and published the tale in Märchen und Sagen, no.

It’s about a round bread running away from an old lady and old man to face different forest animals such as a hare, wolf, and bear, which it is able to avoid, while singing a repetitive song.

In it, an old childless couple make themselves a clay-child, who first eats all their food, then them, then a number of people, until he meets a goat who offers to jump right into his mouth, but instead uses the opportunity to ram the Clay-Boy, shattering him and freeing everyone.

[1] Jacobs' johnny-cake rolls rather than runs, and the fox tricks him by pretending to be deaf and unable to hear his taunting verse.

[8] The massive production then moved to Chicago with most of its New York cast and continued a successful tour of smaller venues in the U.S. for at least another four years.

Ranken's John Dough gingerbread man does not care that he is about to be eaten; he seems to fear obscurity more: "A little boy buys me with a cent .

And removes an arm or leg or two, As down his throat I gently float, How can that hopeful know, Unless he is told, That he's stowed in his hold, The original John Dough.