One day, when the Grimms went back to visit Little Crimson Cap, they asked her where the name "Sooners" came from. She decided it was time someone told the two of them the story of the land run.

"You see," Crimson Cap said. "Oklahoma was settled by a land run. All of these people in big covered wagons came to Oklahoma to get the free land that the government took away from the Native Americans. Everyone lined up on the state borders and took off when they fired a starting pistol. Then everyone raced to claim the best land for their families."

"So who were the Sooners?" Jacob said.

"The Sooners were people who got on the land early to stake their claims," Crimson Cap said. "In fact, my great, great-grandparents were some of the true Sooners. They were smarter than most of those people."

"How so?" Jacob said.

"Well, instead of just going there early and waiting to get caught, they had a better plan," Crimson Cap said. "They had two wagons. My grandpa waited for the start of the race, but my grandma dressed up like him and then went to the land they wanted. She claimed the land quickly in grandpa‘s name. Grandpa waited for the land run to start and then ditched the wagon and went to meet her on their newly-claimed homestead. There were people who were suspicious about the whole thing, but they‘d seen grandpa at the start of the land run. By the time anyone really thought about it, grandpa had met grandma on the land, so they never got caught."

"That wasn’t a very nice thing to do," Wilhelm said.

"No, it probably wasn’t," Crimson Cap said. "Taking land from the Native Americans wasn’t very nice either, but the government did it. I don’t think my grandparents regretted the decision, though. When they came to Oklahoma, they had no money or land or anything."

"Did your grandparents prosper after coming to Oklahoma?" Jacob said.

"They did for a while," Crimson Cap said. "Of course, the Great Depression hit everyone here pretty hard, but they survived and managed to prosper."

"Does everyone here in Oklahoma have as interesting a history as the people we have met?" Jacob said.

"You haven’t heard anything yet!" Crimson Cap said. "I could tell you about a girl who was rescued by a man who climbed up her hair, or about the time all of the girls in the state were trying to squeeze their feet into this tiny slipper, or about a girl who pricked her finger on a spinning wheel and fell asleep for years. Which story would you like to hear first?"

The Grimms looked at each other in disbelief.

"You know, Wilhelm, we could write some wonderful stories about this place, but I don’t think anyone would ever believe us," Jacob said.

"I was thinking the same thing," Wilhelm said. "Maybe if we change some of the details we can make the stories sound more realistic. After all, who’s going to believe that there’s a place that’s this obsessed with football?"

"I know," Jacob said. "I wish we could include all of the things Crimson Cap has taught us. I’d like a chance to introduce the wishbone offense to the masses, but I just don’t think they would understand at all. I guess we should dumb it down a little for them."

"I suppose so," Wilhelm said.

That is how the Grimms’ fairy tales came to be.

Author’s note: I was looking for a story to adapt for my fifth story, and when I read "The Hare and the Hedgehog" I knew that it would be a perfect event to adapt to the land run. "The Hare and the Hedgehog" is a tale that is very similar to "The Tortoise in the Hare." The hare and the hedgehog have a race, but the hedgehog has his wife hide at the end of the course. He and his wife look alike, so when the hare gets to the finish line, he thinks the hedgehog is already there.

Bibliography

"The Hare and the Hedgehog"
Website: Tales Collected by the Brothers Grimm
Weblink: http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~wbarker/fairies/grimm/187.html.
From Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household Tales, trans. Margaret Hunt (London: George Bell, 1884), 1:221-224.

"Land Run of 1889"
Website: Oklahoma Historical Society
Weblink: http://www.ok-history.mus.ok.us/enc/landrun.htm