I remember a picture book story from when I was little – I was born 1975 – and was about 10 or so, not sure if the book was old or new at that time – I’d estimate being read the story somewhere around 1985
The story is about a young boy, maybe a prince, who wakes up after a fresh snowfall and looks outside to see a field of sparkle-y, glittery snow. He walks out to see the beauty of it all and realizes his footprints mess up the beauty. So he hires more men to carry him on a chair or table. I don’t remember the ending exactly but eventually all the men make the problem worse and so he ends up just walking himself – or something along those lines. Any clue as to the book title?
Thank you for your time!!
This sounds like a classic “Chelm” story where the wise/foolish villagers do not want to mess up the snow for some reason (according to some versions they think that the sparkling snow contains diamonds and pearls and silver that they could gather to support the poor people in the town). They decide to send a messenger around to warn everyone not to walk in the snow and trample it. But in order to keep the messenger from trampling the snow himself they have four men carry him around on a table as he goes from house to house warning everyone to stay inside.