Bulgaria

Scott No.:  1327
Date of Issue:  April 17, 1964
Subject:  Folktale:  Grandfather's Mitten

This stamp illustrates a Ukrainian folktale called "Grandfather's Mitten."  A good retelling in English is Jan Brett's wonderfully illustrated The Mitten.  According to Brett, in one version of the tale, the animals crawl into an old pot to get warm, but the pot gets so full it eventually breaks.  In another version, a hunter finds his lost mitten full of animals and blasts away at it.  Alas, there are no frogs in Brett's retelling, but it was my son's first favorite book.