The Story of Ferdinand

Young Ferdinand does not enjoy butting heads with other young bulls, preferring instead to sit under a cork tree smelling the flowers. His mother is concerned that he might be lonely and tries to persuade him to play with the other calves, but when she sees that Ferdinand is content as he is, she leaves him alone.

Ferdinand grew to be the biggest bull in the herd. He often spent time alone, which allowed him to become a much easier catch for the five men coming to choose a bull to take to Madrid for the bullfight. All the other bulls dream of being chosen to compete in the bullfight in Madrid, but Ferdinand still prefers smelling the flowers instead. One day, five men come to the pasture to choose a bull for the fights. Ferdinand is again on his own, sniffing flowers, when he accidentally sits on a bumblebee. Upon getting stung as a result, he runs wildly across the field, snorting and stamping. Mistaking Ferdinand for a mad and aggressive bull, the men rename him "Ferdinand the Fierce" and take him away to Madrid.

All of Madrid, including many beautiful ladies, turn out to see the handsome matador fight "Ferdinand the Fierce." When Ferdinand enters the bull ring, he is faced with a man holding a red flag. However, he is delighted by the flowers in the ladies' hair and sits down in the middle of the ring to enjoy them, upsetting and disappointing everyone. The matador holding the red flag tried to provoke him by stabbing him in the shoulder. Ferdinand is then taken back to his pasture, where to this day he is still sitting under the cork tree happily smelling flowers.

The book's first run by Viking Press in 1936 sold 14,000 copies at $1 each. The following year saw sales increase to 68,000 and by 1938, the book was selling at 3,000 per week.[1][2] That year, it outsold Gone with the Wind to become the number one best seller in the United States.[3]

As of 2019 the book has never been out of print.[4] The book has been translated into more than sixty languages. In 1962, a Latin translation, Ferdinandus Taurus, was published by David McKay Publications in New York and by Hamish Hamilton in London.

A first-edition copy sold at auction for $16,500 in 2014.[5]

In 1938, Life magazine called Ferdinand "the greatest juvenile classic since Winnie the Pooh" and suggested that "three out of four grownups buy the book largely for their own pleasure and amusement".[1] The article also noted that Ferdinand was accused of being a political symbol, noting that "too-subtle readers see in Ferdinand everything from a fascist to a pacifist to a burlesque sit-down striker".[1] Others labelled the work "as promoting fascism, anarchism, and communism".[4] The Cleveland Plain Dealer "accused the book of corrupting the youth of America" while The New York Times downplayed the possible political allegories, insisting the book was about being true to oneself.[6]

The book was released less than two months after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, and was seen by many supporters of Francisco Franco as a pacifist book.[7] It was banned in many countries, including in Spain (where it remained banned until after Franco's death). In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler ordered the book burned (as "degenerate democratic propaganda"),[6][8][9][10][11] while it was the only American children's book available for sale in Stalinist-era Poland.[6] However, despite this, it received particular praise from Thomas Mann, H. G. Wells, Gandhi, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.[3] Following the 1945 defeat of Germany during the Second World War, 30,000 copies were quickly published and given out for free to the country's children in order to encourage peace.[6]

In the United States, the book was so popular with the public in the 1930s that it was used in various commercial products, from toys to Post Toasties breakfast cereal.[12] Disney made it into an animated short in 1938, which became a classic and was the basis for Ferdinand the Bull, based on 'The Story of Ferdinand' by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson (Whitman Publishing Co., 1938), Walt Disney's Ferdinand and the Robbers (Random House, 1983) by Vincent H. Jefferds and Walt Disney's Ferdinand and the Bullies (Bantam Books, 1986, ISBN 978-0553055900).

In 1951, Holiday magazine published an Ernest Hemingway children's story called "The Faithful Bull". This story has been interpreted as a "rebuttal" to the earlier Leaf book.[13]

According to one scholar, the book crosses gender lines in that it offers a character to whom both boys and girls can relate.[14] More recently The New York Times positioned the story in the context of discrimination and social exclusion. It characterized the story as “an icon for the outsider and the bullied".[15]

Example of Spanish Matador

Leaf is said to have written the story on a whim in an afternoon in 1935, largely to provide his friend, illustrator Robert Lawson (then relatively unknown) a forum in which to showcase his talents.[16]

The landscape in which Lawson placed the fictional Ferdinand is more or less real. Lawson faithfully reproduced the view of the city of Ronda in Andalusia for his illustration of Ferdinand being brought to Madrid on a cart: we see the Puente Nuevo ("New Bridge") spanning the El Tajo canyon. The Disney film added some rather accurate views of Ronda and the Puente Romano ("Roman bridge") and the Puente Viejo ("Old bridge") at the beginning of the story, where Lawson's pictures were more free. Ronda is home to the oldest bullfighting ring in Spain that is still used; this might have been a reason for Lawson's use of its surroundings as a background for the story. Although most of the illustrations are realistic, Lawson added touches of whimsy by adding, for instance, bunches of corks, as though plucked from a bottle, growing on the cork tree like fruit.[3]

According to a documentary from Sweden (where the Disney film is shown every year on Christmas Eve)[17] the story has a basis in truth. A peaceful bull named Civilón was raised on a farm outside Salamanca in the early 1930s, and the Spanish press campaigned for it to not have to meet its fate in the bull-fighting area. It was pardoned mid-fight, but when the Spanish Civil War broke out days later, it never lived to see its home.[18][19]

"Ferdinand" was the code name chosen for the Australian Coastwatchers in World War II by Eric Feldt, the organization's commander:

Ferdinand ... did not fight but sat under a tree and just smelled the flowers. It was meant as a reminder to coastwatchers that it was not their duty to fight and so draw attention to themselves, but to sit circumspectly and unobtrusively, gathering information. Of course, like their titular prototype, they could fight if they were stung.[20]

In 1938, the book became a bestseller and an animated short was created, winning the Academy Award for Best Short Subject. Then 80 years later, a full length movie was released by 20th Century Fox.

References in other works

Poster from the Federal Theatre Project, Work Projects Administration production, 1937

Marvel Comics featured a recurring character named Rintrah in the pages of Doctor Strange. This extraterrestrial anthropomorphic bull was frequently referred to as Ferdinand for his gentle and kind nature.

In the DC Comics, the name Ferdinand is used for a Minotaur chef at the Themysciran embassy in New York City.[21] Ferdinand also makes an appearance in the animated movie Wonder Woman: Bloodlines

Illustrator Betty Fraser used a picture of a child reading the book of Ferdinand, along with a bull smelling some flowers, in the 1978 book A House is A House for Me, authored by Mary Ann Hoberman.

A rubber mask of Ferdinand is featured in Stephen King's 1995 novel Rose Madder.

A non-player character(NPC) named Ferdinand in the computer game World of Warcraft can be found in the continent of Pandaria, in the zone of the Jade Forest. He is a yaungol(an oxen-like race) who sits in a garden filled with flowers and trees, with a bouquet of flowers in each hand. He is classed as a rare mob and drops rare level loot as well as a chance to drop an epic weapon when killed. Unlike most other rare mobs he's one of the few who're not marked as hostile and will only fight back if attacked.[22]

In 1951, Capitol Records released Walt Disney's Ferdinand the Bull (CAS 3095), adapted from the book by Alan Livingston with music by Billy May and narrated by Don Wilson, as a 10" 78 RPM album.[26] This recording was later released by Capitol in LP format in 1961 as part of The Sorcerer's Apprentice from Walt Disney's Fantasia (J-3253); the album was re-released in 1972 by Wonderland Records (L-8110).[27]

The story was released as an audio recording in 1967 by Scholastic Records (CC 0606) as a 7" 33-1/3 RPM LP. The story was narrated by former professional boxing champion Juan Nazario with music composed, arranged and conducted by Arthur Rubenstein.[28]

Gwen Verdon narrated the story for a 1971 Caedmon Records recording, The Story Of Ferdinand And Other Stories (TC 1341).[29]

In 1973, Columbia Records released a recording, The Story Of Ferdinand/Andy and the Lion (CR 21519) narrated by Owen Jordan.[30]

The story was adapted by Walt Disney as a short animated film entitled Ferdinand the Bull in 1938, in a style similar to his Silly Symphonies series. Ferdinand the Bull won the 1938 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).

A 3D feature-length computer-animated film adaptation, titled Ferdinand, was released on December 15, 2017. Produced by 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios, it was directed by Carlos Saldanha.[31][32] Ferdinand was nominated for Best Animated Film (losing to Coco) in the 90th Academy Awards.

•  Children's literature portal

• Ferdinand the Bull Turns 75, The New York Times, March 31, 2011
• "Ferdinand the Bull", in the Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts.
• Ferdinand the Bull on YouTube Disney cartoon short.