The Vain Little Mouse (Spanish: La Ratita Presumida) is a folktale about a little mouse and her many suitors.
Plot
There are many different versions of this tale, but the structure is common. In the first part of the tale, a little mouse is cleaning her house and finds a coin unexpectedly. Then she wonders on what she should spend this newly found money, and mentions a series of items (which vary according to the person telling the tale) that she systematically discards with various reasons.
For example: Will I buy a needle? No, because I could prick my finger. Will I buy a bunch of sweets? No, because my teeth will rotten, and so on.
She finally decides on a ribbon to put in her tail to look more attractive.
In the second part of the tale, a rosary of animal suitors come to ask the little mouse to marry them, attracted by her enhanced beauty. To see if each suitor is compatible with her, she asks them what they will do at night. The suitor then replies with his characteristic sound: the dog barks, the horse neighs, the donkey brays, etc. She discards every one of them saying that they would frighten her.
Finally comes another mouse and he replies: "I'll sleep and be silent", to which the she-mouse agrees and they marry and live happily ever after.
Variants
There are many variants of this tale, as it seems to have been originated in the oral tradition and later moved to a literary form. The earliest reference to this tale is found in Fernan Caballero's "La Gaviota" (1856), but the complete tale is not written until later, in her compilation of tales "Cuentos, oraciones, adivinanzas y refranes populares" (1877). In this early version, the little she-mouse is actually a little ant, but she still marries to a mouse, the famous Ratón Pérez, in its early form (before Padre Colomar made him famous).
In other versions of the tale the she-mouse is seduced by the answer of the cat, who sweetly meows when asked what he'll do at night. In this version the mouse is usually eaten by the cat at the wedding night, though not always.
Educational value
The structure of this tale makes it suitable for personalization and adaptation to the particular children hearing it. It's also useful in order to teach the little kids about the animals and their different sounds, or to make them participate doing the sounds. Finally, some sense of danger can be taught to the audience in the first part of the tale, by mentioning objects that can harm them or things they shouldn't play with.