The story of the sheep-thief and the disguised watchman is popular in
Jamaica, especially in St. Ann Parish, and I have given three versions
in order to show the range of variation and the persistence of the
essential plot. I have abbreviated White’s version without other change
except the insertion of the incident of the misunderstood warning,
which comes from another version and commonly precedes the episode of
the “refugees in the roof.” Besides these three versions, Wona has the
story, 30–36, and in Jekyll, 88, Tiger puts on a similar disguise at
the conclusion of Annancy and Candle-fly (see number 7).
The tale falls into three parts. (1) A flock of sheep disappear one by
one. (2) Tiger, or his equivalent, puts on the animal’s skin in order
to catch the thief. (3) The thief is caught, but escapes his captor; or
he provides a substitute; or he is pursued and takes refuge in the
roof.
Compare: Tremearne, 214–216; Barker, 131–132; Parsons, Andros Island,
117–119; Edwards, 67–68.
(1) The witty opening of the Jamaica versions based on a compensation
motive (see numbers 22 and 63), in which the rascal takes advantage of
an open-handedness common to aristocratic wealth, does not occur
outside Jamaica. Compare Tremearne, FL 21: 213–214. In Parsons, he
pleads his wife’s illness; in Edwards and Barker, he is a mere thief.
In Barker, as in Jamaica, the story accepts the absurdity that all the
sheep have disappeared except the last.
(2) The thief-catcher is “head-man” in Edwards as in Jamaica; in Barker
he is a man who comes to town; in Wona, he is Tacoomah; in Parsons, a
lion gets in with the sheep and is taken as the plumpest of them.
(3) Barker’s version has a moralizing tendency; it is the friend who
accompanies the thief who, at a flash of lightning, detects the trap
and escapes. In Edwards, as in version (b), the rascal shifts the
burden to his unsuspecting accomplice and himself escapes. Edwards and
Parsons both conclude with the episode of taking refuge in the roof, as
in version (c). For references see Parsons, 117 note 2.
For the incident of the misunderstood warning, compare: Tremearne, FL
21: 206; Renel 2: 7, 8; Theal, 165; Harris, Nights, 82; Trowbridge,
JAFL 9: 286.
There can be no doubt that the essential plot is a version of the
Sindibad fable of the thief among the beasts, who caught the lion by
mistake, told in Comparetti’s translation from the Portuguese in his
“Researches Concerning the Book of Sindibad”, PFLS 9: 144. A rich
herder camps beside a village at night. A prowling lion gets among the
beasts. A thief comes and, feeling the animals to see which is the
plumpest, lays hands upon the lion.