“Sweet Porridge” is assigned KHM 103. The Grimms’ collection number identifies this brief tale about a magic pot that cooks millet porridge whenever it receives the correct command.
A poor girl receives the pot from an old woman after showing kindness or seeking help for her hungry household. The pot obeys commands equivalent to “Cook, little pot” and “Stop, little pot.” When the girl is away, her mother starts the pot but cannot remember how to stop it. Porridge floods the house, the street and the town until the girl returns and speaks the stopping phrase.
The tale is often called “The Magic Porridge Pot” in English, which can make it seem like a different story from “Sweet Porridge.” It is also classified as ATU 565, “The Magic Mill,” but ATU numbers and KHM numbers are not interchangeable: the former groups related international folktales, while the latter records the tale’s place in the Grimm anthology.
The story’s comic catastrophe turns hunger and abundance into a problem of memory and control. Its final image—people eating their way back through the porridge—makes the short tale especially memorable.