all that he saw and heard.
One day our hero leaned his little head over the edge of the basket, so
he could see around him, and a servant saw him and said to him,--
“So it is you who watch us, you little wretch! It is you who tell the
master all that happens! Very well! you shall pay for it!”
Amid the applause of his companions, the servant took down the basket,
seized the poor little fellow by the hair, and threw him into the
horse-trough. That same day an ox went there to drink, and swallowed
him whole.
At the end of a week, the lord had the ox killed for a great feast
that he made; the entrails were thrown out into the road. An old woman
passing by saw the entrails. “Oh! what splendid entrails! What a pity
to throw them away!” and so saying, she clapped them into the basket
which she carried on her back. She had not taken many steps, when she
heard a noise that came from her basket saying,--
“Toc! toc!
The devil’s imp is in your basket!
Toc! toc!
The devil’s imp is in your basket!”
The old woman threw down her basket, and ran away frightened.
A hungry wolf came along who seized on the entrails with avidity, and
John Bit-of-a-man was once more swallowed alive.
As the wolf was crossing the plain, he heard a voice which came from
the inside of his body cry out,--
“Help! shepherd! help! here is the wolf that devours your sheep.”
“Be quiet! you cursed stomach; be quiet! cursed stomach!” said the wolf
in desperation.
“I will not hold my tongue until you have put me down at my father’s
door,” answered John Bit-of-a-man.
“Very well; I will go there,” said the wolf.
When they got there, John Bit-of-a-man got out of the wolf’s stomach,
and ran quickly into the house, passing by the cat’s hole; at the same
moment, seizing the wolf by the tail, he cried, “Come, father, come, I
have got the wolf by the tail.” His father ran to him, killed the wolf
with one stroke of his axe, and sold his skin.
Restored to his home again, John Bit-of-a-man lived ever after happy
and peaceful.
Told by Madam Richet, aged 77, at Woippy, near Metz.
NÉRÉE QUEPAT.
LONG TIME
A STORY OF CARAYAC (QUERCY)
Once upon a time there was a man who was not rich, but by dint of hard
work he had saved up a little sum. Every day when he went to his work,
he said to his wife,--
“Take care of this money. It is for the long time.”
The woman, as soon as he was gone, would take pleasure in counting
over the crowns and the sous. One day when she was alone in her house,
counting her money as usual, a beggar came by and asked her for charity.
“Alas! poor man,” said she, “we are very poor; I have nothing to give
you.”
“What!” said he, “and all those beautiful crowns and those sous that
you have there! Could you not give me some of those for charity?”
“I wish I could,” said the woman, “but we are keeping this for the long
time.”
“The long time?” said the beggar; “I am the long time.”
“Ah! if you are the long time, that is another thing. Take some, take
some.”
The beggar, not at all ashamed, pocketed the whole sum, leaving not a
farthing or a mite, and went away satisfied with his windfall, as you
may imagine.
The husband returned. “Long Time came,” said the wife, “and I gave him
the money that we saved for him.”
“Long Time? you miserable baggage!”
“Yes; a poor man who told me that he was Long Time. I have given him
all.”
“Ah! poor dunce! you let him steal the savings from you. Come, there is
nothing left for us to do, but take a wallet and go out ourselves and
beg from village to village. Take your clothes and let us go forth.”
The husband had nothing but what he had on, the wife not much more. He
went in front, she followed.
“Shut the door tight,” said the husband.
“Did you say carry it?”
“I said shut it.”
“Shall I carry it?”
“Yes, carry it.”
The obedient wife took the door off the hinges, put it on her
shoulders, and followed her husband towards the neighboring wood.
[Illustration: THE OBEDIENT WIFE FOLLOWED.]
Night came on. They heard the noise of a band of robbers, who were
coming in their direction. “Let us climb up into a tree to hide,” said
the husband.
“What shall I do with the door?” asked his wife.
“The door? Leave it there.”
“Shall I take it up?”
“Leave it there.”
“Shall I take it up?”
“Yes, take it up.”
She climbed up after her husband into a large old spreading oak-tree,
dragging the door after her. They were scarcely settled in the branches
when the robbers arrived at the foot of the tree, made a halt, opened
their provisions, lighted a fire, prepared their supper, counted the
booty they had taken during the day, and then began to eat and drink.
The wife, from the top branch, said in a low voice to her husband,--
“The door is going to fall!”
“Hold on to it, you miserable baggage, or we are lost.”
“Shall I let it go?”
“Hold on to it!”
“Shall I let it go?”
“Yes, let it go.”
The woman let go the door, which tumbled with a great crash from branch
to branch, and fell into the midst of the robbers and frightened them
so that they ran away as fast as they could, forgetting all their
plunder and never looking behind them.
The husband and wife came down, picked up the jewels, the pieces of
gold, and all the booty left by the robbers, and returned to their
house, rich for the rest of their lives.
MARCEL DEVIC.
SKILFUL JOHN
A STORY OF PICARDY
One day a poor man sent his son, Skilful John, to carry some buttered
rolls to his parents, who lived three miles off, telling him not to
stop by the way. John sauntered along the road and lost his way. Seeing
a light, he followed it and came to a little hut. He knocked at the
door.
“Tap! tap!
Open to a poor lost boy.
Tap! tap!
God therefor will have great joy.”
The door opened; an old woman with a grinning face appeared and asked,
“Who are you?”
“I am Skilful John; will you lodge me for the night?”
“If I lodge you, what will you pay me?”
“I will give you a piece of buttered roll.”
The old woman made him come in; he seated himself in a corner while the
old woman made him some broth.
“I bet,” said she to him after a few moments, “that with my old legs
I can reach my garden wall before you do. If I win, I will eat your
buttered roll; and if I lose, you shall keep your roll, and have my
broth into the bargain.”
“Very well,” said the child; and, darting out, he soon reached the
garden wall. But the old woman, instead of running, shut and bolted her
door and took possession of the buttered roll that John had left on his
bench. John knocked in vain; the door was not opened for him a second
time; and as it was raining very hard, he got into a bee-hive. In the
middle of the night some thieves came to steal the hives. John heard a
voice say,--
“Lift the hives, and take away the heaviest.”
As the hive in which John was, was one of the heaviest, it was taken
away by the thieves, who put it in a bag.
When the thieves came to a wood, they put down their burdens, John took
his knife, made a hole in the bag and escaped.
After wandering for some time, he met a shepherd who gave him a piece
of bread, and took him afterwards to sleep in the barn of a farmhouse.
During the night the floor fell in, and John woke up in a stable
astride of an ox. Just at that moment the thieves were busy unfastening
the oxen; seeing John, they took him and carried him away with them
to the forest. Not wishing to kill him, they shut him up in an old
cask and abandoned him to his unhappy fate. A pack of wolves came up
to devour the remains of the thieves’ repast: one of them passed near
the cask. John put his hand out of the bung-hole and seized him by his
tail. The frightened wolf fled through the woods, dragging behind him
the cask, which was soon broken into a thousand pieces. John, once more
set free, went wandering around till he came to a hut. It was the same
old woman’s hut. Its door was only latched. John entered softly; the
old woman, who was asleep, did not hear him. He took his buttered roll
and ate all there was left of the broth, then went out singing as loud
as he could,--
“Old woman! old woman!
I have eaten your broth.
Old woman! old woman!
I am sharp enough!”
Told in Picardy by Narcisso Dufaux, aged 48 years, a cap-maker at
Warloy-Baillon (Somme).
HENRI CARNOY.
THE TAILOR AND THE HURRICANE
A BRETON STORY
Once there was a tailor and his wife. Tailors’ wives are generally
lazy, and this one was like the rest. Her name was Jeanne ar Balc’h and
her husband’s name was Iann troad scarbet (John Cross-foot). In the
morning, as soon as Jean had gone out to his work, Jeanne got back into
bed, and when she rose again, about eleven or twelve o’clock, she went
to gossip in the village, and chatted from door to door like a magpie.
When Jean returned in the evening she was always at her spinning-wheel;
so he thought she had not left it the whole day.
One morning Jean said to Jeanne,--
“I shall not go out to-day, wife, for a day’s work, and we will both go
together to the market to sell the yarn; for you must have a great deal
by this time.”
Jeanne was greatly embarrassed at this; what should she do? She had not
three bobbins of yarn. She went to the house, of a neighboring gossip,
and told how it was.
“Tell your husband,” said the gossip, “that after having washed your
thread, you had put it to dry in the oven of the furnace, and that he,
not knowing of it, lighted the fire as usual and burned up all the
thread.”
Jeanne returned to her house, and told her husband, word for word, what
the gossip said.
“Fool!” cried Jean angrily; “you must have lost the little sense you
had, and I shall never be anything but poor with you. Now, to punish
you, you shall sow in the garden the half-bushel of flaxseed that we
have there; and this evening when I come home, the flax must be ripe,
reaped, retted, dried, and put in bundles in the barn.”
“But my poor husband,” said Jeanne, “how can you talk in such a way? No
one in the world can do this; and how can you expect me to do it?”
“You may manage it as you like,” answered Jean; “but it must be done
when I come back this evening, or woe to you!”
Then he went away as usual. Jeanne, much disturbed, ran at once to the
house of her gossiping neighbor.
“If you only knew, neighbor, what my husband has ordered me to do! He
must have lost his senses completely.”
“What has he ordered you to do?”
“What has he ordered me to do? He says that this evening when he turns
from his day’s work, I must have sown in our garden a half-bushel of
flaxseed, and that, moreover, the flax must be ripe, reaped, retted,
dried, and put in bundles in the barn! I should like to know if you do
not think he must have lost his senses to ask such an impossible thing
of me?” And she cried as she said this.
“Be comforted, neighbor,” said the other woman; “we will find out some
way of deceiving Jean yet; he thinks himself cunning, but he is only a
fool. This is what you must do. I have a little flax in my barn from
last year. Take two or three bundles of it, and scatter it over the
fields and meadows around, and hang some on the hedges and bushes, and
when he returns in the evening, you can tell him that you have done
all that he ordered you, but that a hurricane came while the flax was
drying in the meadow, and carried it all away; and as a proof of this
you can show him what is left hanging on the trees and bushes.”
This appeared to Jeanne to be an excellent plan; so she took three
bundles of her neighbor’s dry flax, and went and scattered it over the
fields and meadows, and hung it on the bushes and the branches of the
trees.
When Jean returned in the evening he asked at once,--
“Well, wife, have you done what I told you, this morning?”
“Certainly, I did just exactly what you told me; but we have no luck,
my poor husband.”
“Well, what has happened?”
“What has happened? Think of it! The flax, after being taken out of
the pond where it had been retted, was drying in the meadow, and I was
getting ready to pick it up and bind it in bundles to put it up in the
barn, when a hurricane came which has carried it all away.”
“Tut, tut, tut! I do not believe any such stories,” said Jean.
“But, my husband, this is not a story at all; come with me and I will
show you that it is the pure truth.”
And she led him to the field, where she pretended to have spread her
flax to dry, and showed it to him, scattered all over the neighboring
fields and meadows, or hanging on the bushes and branches of the trees.
Jean believed her then, and he exclaimed,--
“Very well! since it is the hurricane that has done all this damage, it
is he that shall pay for it, and I will go this moment and complain to
the master of the winds.”
Then he went into his house, took his _pennbaz_, a taste of barley
bread and some buttered rolls, and started off. He traveled a long
time; after going straight ahead, farther and farther off, he came,
one day, to the foot of a hill on which there was seated an old woman
as large as a giantess. Her white hair floated in the wind, and one
long, black tooth, the only one she had left, shook in her mouth.
“Good morning, grandmother!” said Jean.
“Good morning, my son,” answered the old woman; “what do you want?”
“I am looking for the dwelling-place of the winds.”
“Then, my son, you are at the end of your journey, for this is the
dwelling-place of the winds, and I am their mother. What do you want
with them?”
“I want to complain of the damage they have caused me.”
“What damage have they caused you? Tell me, and I will repay you if it
is possible.”
“Your son Hurricane has ruined me”; and he told the whole affair to the
old woman.
She said to him, “Come into my house, my son, and when my son the
Hurricane returns I will make him repay you.”
And she then descended the hill and took Jean to her house, which was
at the foot of it. It was a hut built of branches and clods of earth,
and the wind came in and blew through and through it. She gave him
something to eat, and told him not to be afraid of her son, when he
returned, although he might threaten to eat him up, for she would know
very well how to manage him.
Soon a terrible noise was heard; the trees cracked, small stones flew
through the air, and the wolves howled.
“That is my son the Hurricane, coming,” said the old woman.
Jean was so terribly frightened that he hid himself under the table.
The Hurricane came in muttering, sniffing the air, and cried out,--
“I smell the blood of a Christian! There is a Christian here, and I
must eat him up!”
“Do not think, my son, that I am going to let you eat up this pretty
little Christian; think rather of repaying him for the damage you have
done him,” said the old woman; and, taking Jean by the hand, she made
him come out from under the table.
The Hurricane, as soon as he saw him, opened his enormous mouth, and
sprang at him to swallow him. But his mother said to him, pointing with
her finger to a bag which was hanging from one of the beams of the
hut,--
“Do you want to be put in prison?” And he became calm immediately. Then
the tailor grew bold and said to him,--
“Good morning, Mr. Hurricane; you have ruined me.”
“How is that, my good man?” answered the Hurricane gently.
“You carried away all my flax from the meadow where my wife had spread
it to dry.”
“That is not true; and your wife is a liar and a good-for-nothing
creature. But as you are an honest man and a good workman, and because
in spite of all the trouble you take you will always be poor with such
a wife, I will reward you for the trouble you have taken in coming
here, and for your confidence in my justice. See! here is a mule, and
when you are in want of silver and gold you have only to spread a white
napkin under his mouth and say to him, ‘Mule, do your duty!’ and he
will furnish you with gold and silver as much as you want. But take
care not to let him be stolen from you, or you will find yourself poor
as before.”
Then the Hurricane gave him a mule which was in a corner of a hut,
and which was not at all different from an ordinary mule. The tailor
thanked the Hurricane, bade farewell to him and also to his mother, and
then went away, taking with him the precious animal.
When he had gone a considerable distance, as he was crossing a large
field, he wished to assure himself that his mule really possessed the
virtue which had been attributed to him. He spread his handkerchief
under his mouth and said, “Mule, do your duty!” And immediately pieces
of gold and silver fell in his handkerchief until it would not hold any
more. He filled his pockets with them, then he started again on his
way, singing, laughing, dancing, and jumping for joy, as if he were
foolish.
Toward sunset he stopped to pass the night in an inn by the roadside.
As he left his mule with the stable-boy, he charged him to take special
care of it and never to say to it, “Do your duty.” Poor Jean, as we
have seen, was none of the sharpest. After having supped comfortably,
eaten and drunk of the best there was in the house, he went to bed and
slept without anxiety till morning.
The stable-boy was astonished at Jean’s charging him not to say to
the mule, “Do your duty”; no traveler had ever told him such a thing.
“There is something back of this,” said he to himself.
This thought kept him from sleeping: he went to tell his master about
it. When all the household was asleep, the inn-keeper, his wife, and
the stable-boy, went to the stable, and going up to the mule the
stable-boy said,--
“Mule, do your duty!”
And pieces of gold and silver fell at once, making a ringing sound.
They were overcome with astonishment. After they had all three filled
their pockets, they put another mule in place of the tailor’s and hid
his in a room well fastened up, far from the stable.
The next day, Jean breakfasted well, paid his reckoning, and then set
out again on his journey, taking with him the mule which the stable-boy
brought him, and not dreaming of the trick that had been played on him.
As he had his pockets filled with gold and silver, he had no need,
during the rest of his journey, to say to his mule, “Do your duty.”
When he reached his home, his wife and children were ready to die of
hunger. On seeing him, Jeanne began to heap abuses upon him: “So here
you are at last, wicked, heartless man; you run off, no one knows
where, and leave your wife and children at home to die of hunger.”
And she shook her fist at him.
“Hold your tongue! wife,” said Jean, quietly, and with the air of a man
sure of his powers; “you will never again want for bread or anything
else; we are rich now, as you shall see! Take off your apron and spread
it on the ground under the mule’s mouth.”
Jeanne spread her apron on the ground and Jean said,--
“Mule, do your duty!”
But to his astonishment nothing fell in the apron. He said, a second
time, louder than before, thinking perhaps he had not heard,--
“Mule, do your duty!”
Still nothing; then a third time he cried still louder,--
“Mule, do your duty!”
But neither gold nor silver fell on the apron. Jeanne, now persuaded
that her husband was mocking her, seized a stick and darted at him.
Poor Jean, to get out of her way, ran out, and not daring to go into
his house, and not knowing just where his mule had been stolen, he
determined to go again to see the Hurricane.
When the latter saw him returning all cast down he said to him,--
“I know why you have come back; you let them steal your mule from you
at the first inn where you lodged on your way home. Here is a napkin,
and when you spread it on a table or even on the ground, saying to it,
‘Napkin, do your duty!’ it will furnish you immediately with all you
want to eat and drink. But take care not to let this be stolen also.”
“Do not be anxious! they shall steal my life first.”
Then he bade farewell to the Hurricane and his mother and set out on
his journey. He lodged, the first night, at the same inn as before.
There was a wedding feast going on when he arrived. He was heartily
welcomed and asked to sit at the table with the newly married pair,
to which he agreed with pleasure. Finding the repast not much to his
taste, or perhaps being anxious to excite the astonishment of the
guests and to pass for a great scholar or a magician, he drew his
napkin from his pocket, spread it on the table, and profoundly uttered
the words, “Napkin, do your duty!”
Immediately there was a magnificent repast, delicious meats, such
as are seen only on the tables of kings, and fine wines from all
countries. Intoxicated, as much by the praises as by the wine, Jean let
them steal away his napkin also, and the next day he was as poor and
destitute as ever.
This time he dared not show himself before his wife in such a
condition, and he thought that the only thing he could do was to go
again to the home of the mother of the winds. So he went there again,
but this time very much ashamed and cast down.
When the Hurricane saw him, he said to him,--
“You have let them steal away your napkin also, unfortunate man!”
“Have pity on me, Mr. Hurricane,” said the tailor, humbly; “my wife and
my children are dying of hunger at home, and I cannot go back to them
without taking them something.”
“I consent to come to your assistance one last time, for you are
not a wicked man”; and handing him a stick--“Here is a stick, and
when whoever has it in his hand says, ‘Stick, do your duty!’ he will
immediately begin to beat his master’s enemies, and nothing can stop it
until he cries, ‘Enough!’ With this stick, you can recover your mule
and your napkin.”
Jean thanked him and departed. He lodged at the same inn as before.
They welcomed him in the heartiest manner, in the hope of stealing
some other talisman from him. He invited the inn-keeper and his wife
and also the stable-boy to supper with him. When the repast was nearly
over, he said to his stick, which he had held constantly in his hand,
not being willing to be separated from it,--
“Stick, do your duty!”
And immediately the stick was in motion and beat the inn-keeper and his
wife and the stable-boy with all its might. All their efforts to stop
it were useless, and in vain they tried to hide themselves under the
table and other things; the stick reached them everywhere, and Jean
laughed and made a joke of it. “Pity! Mercy!” they cried to him, and he
said to them,--
“That will teach you to steal mules and napkins!”
“Pity! We will give them all back to you! You will kill us!”
“Enough!” cried Jean, at the end of half an hour of this exercise;
and the stick stopped striking, and Jean returned to his home with his
mule, napkin, and stick. If he has been wise enough to keep them, he
has nothing to complain of. For my part I have heard nothing of him
since that time.
Told by Barbe Tassel, of Plouaret (Côtes-du-Nord).
F. M. LUZEL.
THE BAKER’S THREE DAUGHTERS
OR,
THE DANCING WATER, THE SINGING APPLE, AND THE BIRD OF TRUTH
There was once an old baker who was a widower with three daughters.
One evening after supper they sat before the fire talking about their
loves. “Whom do you love, oldest sister?” asked the youngest.
“The king’s gardener,” she replied.
“And you?” she asked of the second sister.
“The king’s waiting-man.”
“Very well; as for me, I love the king’s son.”
“The king’s son! you are joking!” cried the other two.
“Certainly not, and I tell you, moreover, that we shall have three
children, the king’s son and I, two boys, each with a gold star on his
forehead, and a daughter with a silver star.”
The father, who had gone to bed, and who overheard the conversation of
his daughters, said to them then,--
“What sort of talk is this? You must be crazy! go to bed at once.”
So the three girls went to bed.
The king’s son was taking a walk that evening through the village,
accompanied by his waiting-man and his gardener. A shower came up,
and they went under the baker’s shed for shelter and overheard the
conversation of the three girls. The prince took down the name of the
baker, which was on his sign, and the next morning he sent to ask the
oldest daughter to come to the palace to speak to him.
“Do you remember,” said he to her, “what you said yesterday evening,
beside your fire, in your father’s house?” The young girl was very much
surprised and frightened. “Do not be afraid, my girl,” said he, “speak
boldly, for I have heard all; do you remember what you said?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“And you would be willing to marry my gardener?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Very well; go home and tell your second sister to come and talk with
me.”
When the latter came to the palace, the prince asked of her, as he had
done of her elder sister,--
“Do you remember what you said yesterday evening, beside your fire in
your father’s house?”
“Yes, sire, certainly,” she replied.
“And you would be willing to take my waiting-man for your husband?”
“Yes, certainly.”