what we know to.’
So they looks at this mark.
‘Oh! it is my brother Ashypelt,’ they sez, blessin’ ’im an’ kissin’ ’im
an’ slobberin’, an’ so on.
So ’ee gives ’em a suit o’ clo’es apiece, these eleven brothers, to put
on.
‘Now,’ ’ee sez, ‘I think we’ll go back an’ see the old ’ooman an’ the
old man, how they are gettin’ on, from ’ere,’ sez Ashypelt to ’is
brothers. ‘An’ when we get nigh ’ome, you eleven brothers stop behind,
an’ I’ll drive up to the little farm, an’ ax the old lady what came of
her eleven sons what she ’ad.’
So poor Ashypelt drives up to the ’ouse.
‘Hello! my old lady,’ ’ee sez, ‘what’s come of all the eleven sons as
you ’ad?’
‘Oh!’ sez ’er, ‘they all went off for soldiers.’
So ’ee calls ’is eleven brothers up, an’ ’ee sez, ‘Didn’t you try to
burn my eleven brothers in that barn,’ ’ee sez, ‘when you set the barn
alight, an’ told ’em as the pressgang o’ soldiers was after ’em?’
So she sez, ‘No—true—no,’ she sed.
I tell you, sir, they give me a shilling for telling you that lie.
The name Ashypelt (Scottish Ashypet, Irish Ashiepelt, etc.; cf.
Engl. Dialect Dict., pp. 80, 81) must be of Teutonic origin—akin to
the familiar High German Aschenbrödel (‘Cinderella’) and the Norse
Askepot (‘Boots’). The form coming nearest to it is also the oldest
known to me: the mystic, Johann Tauler (c. 1300–61), says, in the
Medulla Animæ, ‘I thy stable-boy and poor Aschenbaltz.’ See Grimm’s
Household Tales, i. 366–7. In another story told by Cornelius
Price, ‘The Black Dog of the Wild Forest,’ the hero is hidden by an
old witch in the ash-hole under the fire. In the Polish-Gypsy tale
of ‘A Foolish Brother and a Wonderful Bush’ (No. 45), that brother
crouches over his stove; in Dasent’s Tales from the Norse, Boots
sits all his life in the ashes (pp. 90, 232, 382); in Ralston’s
story ‘Ivan Popyalof’ (p. 66), from the Chernigof government, the
third brother, a simpleton, ‘for twelve whole years lay among the
ashes from the stove, but then he arose and shook himself, so that
six poods of ashes fell off from him’; and in Léger’s Bohemian
story (Contes Slaves, p. 130) of ‘La Montre Enchantée,’ which is a
variant of our No. 54, the third brother, a fool, does nothing but
begrime himself with the cinders from the stove. The idea, then,
extends beyond the Teutonic area; but how the name Ashypelt has
found its way to South Wales is past my telling.
Compare Grimm’s No. 4 (i. 11), ‘The Story of the Youth who went
forth to learn what Fear was,’ with the variants on pp. 342–347;
also a fragment from Calver, Derbyshire, ‘The Boy who Feared
Nothing,’ in Addy’s Household Tales. From a London tinker Campbell
of Islay got a story of a cutler and a tinker who ‘travel together,
and sleep in an empty haunted house for a reward. They are beset by
ghosts and spirits of murdered ladies and gentlemen, and the
inferior, the tinker, shows most courage, and is the hero. “He went
into the cellar to draw beer, and there he found a little chap
a-sittin’ on a barrel with a red cap on ’is ’ed; and sez he, sez
he, ‘Buzz.’ ‘Wot’s Buzz?’ sez the tinker. ‘Never you mind wot’s
buzz,’ sez he. ‘That’s mine; don’t you go for to touch it,’” etc.,
etc., etc.’ (Tales of the West Highlands, vol. i. p. xlvii.). And
in vol. ii. p. 276, Campbell gives a Gaelic story, ‘The Tale of the
Soldier’ (our No. 74), which was told by a tinker.
NO. 58.—TWOPENCE-HALFPENNY
There were three brothers. The three were going on the road to seek for
work. Night came upon them. They knew not where to go to get lodgings:
it was night. They were travelling through a wood on an old road. They
saw a small light, and they came to a cottage. They were hungry and
tired. The door was open. They saw a table with food upon it.
Said the eldest brother, ‘Go you in.’
‘I am not going in; go in yourself.’
‘Not I, indeed.’
‘You are two fools,’ said Jack. And in he went, and sat down at the
table, and ate his bellyful. The other two watched him. They were
afraid to enter the house. At last the other two went in, and sat down
and ate.
Now a little old woman comes. Said the old woman, ‘I have seen no man
here for many years. Whence came ye hither?’
‘We are seeking for work.’
‘I will find work for you to-morrow.’
They went to bed. Up they rose in the morning. And there was a great
pot on the fire, and porridge and milk. That was the food they ate. Now
the old woman tells the eldest brother to go into the barn to get the
tools, and to go into the wood to fell the trees. He took off his coat.
There he is doing the work. There came an old dwarf, and asked him who
told him to fell the wood. He could not see this little man, so small
was he. He looked under his feet; he saw him in the stubble. The old
dwarf hit him and beat him, until he bled, and there he left him. Now
the maid comes with his dinner. The girl went home and told the two
other brothers to come and carry him home and put him to bed.
In the morning the second brother goes to the wood. The eldest brother
told him it was a little man who beat him, and the second brother
laughed at him. He went off now down to the woods. Here is something
that asks him who told him to fell the trees. He looked around him; he
could see nothing. At last he saw him in the stubble. ‘Be off,’ said
he. The little stranger knocked him to pieces. The little maid came
down to him with his dinner, and went home and told the two brothers to
come and carry him home. The two brothers went down and brought him
home.
Jack laughed at them: ‘I am going down to-morrow myself.’
In the morning he went down to the wood. Here he is felling the trees.
He heard something. He looked beneath his feet. He saw the little man
in the stubble. Jack kicked him.
‘You had better keep quiet,’ said the little man.
The dwarf hit him. Down went Jack, and the dwarf half-killed him. There
was Jack lying there now. The maid came with his dinner. Home went the
maid, and told the two brothers to come and carry him home.
‘No,’ said Jack, ‘leave me here and go.’
The two brothers went home. Jack was watching him, and the little man
crept under a great stone. Up got Jack now, and home he went, and told
his two brothers to go into the stable and get out four horses. They
took a strong rope, and the three went with the horses and fastened the
rope round the stone. They took the horses, and pulled it up, and found
a well there.
‘Go you down,’ said one.
‘Not I,’ said the other; ‘I am not going down.’
‘I will go down,’ says Jack. ‘Fasten this rope and let me down, and
when you hear me say “Pull up,” pull me up; and when I say “Let go,”
let me go.’
Now the two brothers fastened him and let him down. Down he went a very
little way. The little man beat him. ‘Pull me up.’ He goes down again.
He forgets the word: ‘Let me down.’ He came into a beautiful country,
and there he saw the old dwarf. The old dwarf spoke to him: ‘Since you
have come into this country, Jack, I will tell you something now.’ The
old man tells Jack what he is to do. ‘You will find three castles. In
the first one lives a giant with two heads, and,’ said the old dwarf,
‘you must fight him. Take the old rusty sword. I will be there with
you.’
‘I am afraid of him.’
‘Go on, and have no fear. I will be there with you.’
Here is Jack at the castle now. He knocked at the door. The
servant-maid came, and he asked for her master.
‘He is at home. Do you wish to see him?’
‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘I want to fight with him.’
The maid went and told him to come out.
‘Are you wanting something to eat?’
‘No,’ said Jack, ‘come out, and I will fight with you.’
‘Come here and choose your sword.’ (Jack chose the old rusty sword.)
‘Why do you take that old rusty sword? Take a bright one.’
‘Not I. This one will do for me.’
The twain went out before the door. Off went one head.
‘Spare my life, Jack. I will give you all my money.’
‘No.’
He struck off the other head; he killed him. (Now this was the Copper
Castle: so they called it.)
Now Jack goes on to the next, the Silver Castle. A giant with three
heads lived there. Jack chose the rusty sword, and struck two heads
off.
‘Don’t kill me, Jack; let me live. I will give you the keys of my
castle.’
‘Not I,’ said Jack; and off went the other head.
Now Jack goes on to the next, the Golden Castle. And there was a giant
with four heads.
‘Have you come here to fight with me?’
‘Yes,’ says Jack.
The giant told him to choose a sword, and he chose the old rusty sword;
and out they went Jack struck off three heads.
‘Don’t kill me, Jack. I will give you my keys.’
‘Yes, I will,’ said Jack; and off went the other head.
Now all the castles, and the money and the three fair ladies in the
three castles, were his. Off Jack goes now and the lady with him. He
goes back to the Silver Castle, and takes that lady. He goes to the
Copper Castle, and takes that lady. And the four went on and came to
the place where Jack descended. The old dwarf was there waiting for
him. Jack sent the three ladies up to his brothers. Now the old dwarf
wanted meat. Jack went back to the castle, and cooked some meat for
him. The old dwarf carried Jack up a bit; the old dwarf stopped; he
wanted meat. Jack gave him meat. He went up a bit further; he stopped;
he wanted meat. Jack gave him meat. He went up a bit higher. He wanted
meat. Jack had none. Now he was a very little way from the surface. He
knew not what to do. He drew his knife from his pocket, and cut a
little meat off his leg, and gave it to the old dwarf. Up went Jack.
Two of the ladies and his two brothers had gone off. And the eldest
brother had taken the fairest lady; and the second brother had taken
the other lady; and they had left the ugly lady for Jack. Jack asked
her where they had gone. The lady told him; and he hastened after them.
He caught them by the church: they were going to be married. The
fairest lady looked back, and saw Jack.
‘That one’s mine,’ said Jack.
Jack took and married her. He left the other lady for his eldest
brother to marry. There was only the second brother now, and he took
the ugly lady. There are the three brothers and the three ladies.
Now they want to go down to the three castles. Jack told the old dwarf
to carry them down.
‘I will carry you down; you must give me food as I come down.’
‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘I will give you plenty of food.’
‘I will take you down.’
He carried them all down. And the old dwarf went along with Jack. Jack
put one brother and one lady in the Copper Castle, and the other
brother in the Silver Castle; and Jack went to the Golden Castle. And
Jack kept the old dwarf all his days. The old dwarf died, and at last
Jack grew old himself.
There! you’ve done me.
A most interesting variant of our No. 20, the Bukowina-Gypsy story
of ‘Mare’s Son,’ and so of Grimm’s ‘Strong Hans’ and Cosquin’s
‘Jean de l’Ours.’ In one respect it is more perfect than ‘Mare’s
Son,’ that during the upward flight the hero cuts a piece out of
his leg, which piece by rights the dwarf should have kept and
restored (cf. p. 79). It is, however, contrary to every canon of
the story-teller’s art for the dwarf to prove helpful to the hero;
and the brother’s treachery, in cutting the rope, is omitted. For
the castles of copper, silver, and gold see pp. 233–4. One is left
rather sorry for the ugly lady.
NO. 59.—THE OLD SMITH [134]
An old smith lived on a hill with his wife and mother-in-law. He could
only make ploughshares. A boy comes, and wants his horse shod. The
smith could not do it. The boy cuts the horse’s legs off, stops the
blood, and puts the legs on the fire, beats them on the anvil, and
replaces them on the horse. He gives the smith a guinea, and goes away.
The smith tries this with his mother-in-law’s horse, but bungles it:
the horse bleeds to death, and its legs are burnt to ashes. The boy
comes again with two old women. ‘I want you to make them young again.’
The smith couldn’t. The boy puts them on the fire, beats them on the
anvil, and rejuvenates them. The smith tries it with his wife and
mother-in-law, but burns them to ashes. He leaves his forge, and sets
off in the snow and wind. The barefooted boy follows him. The smith
wants to send him off. The boy tells him of a sick king in the next
town, whom they will cure, the boy acting as the smith’s servant. The
butler admits them, and gives them plenty to eat and drink. The smith
forgets all about the sick king, but the boy reminds him. They go up.
The boy asks for a knife, pot, water, and spoon. He cuts the king’s
head off, and spits on his hand to stop the blood. He puts the head in
the pot, boils it, lifts it out with the golden spoon, and replaces it
on the king, who is cured. The king gives them a sack of gold. They
take the road again.
‘All I want,’ says Barefoot, ‘is a pair of shoes.’
‘I’ve little enough for myself,’ says the smith.
The boy leaves him, and the smith goes on alone. Hearing of another
sick king, he goes to cure him, but takes too much to drink, and boils
his head all to ribbons, and lets him bleed to death. A knock comes to
the door. The smith, frightened, refuses admittance.
‘Won’t you open to little Barefoot?’
The boy enters, and with much difficulty gets the head on again. The
king is cured, and gives them two sacks of gold. The boy asks for shoes
and gets them. The boy tells the smith of a gentleman who has a wizard,
[135] whom none can beat: ‘Let’s go there. Three sacks of gold to any
one who beats him.’ They enter. There was a bellows. The wizard blows,
and blows up half the sea; the boy blows up a fish that drinks up all
the wizard’s water. The wizard blows up corn as it were rain; the boy
blows up birds that eat the corn. The wizard blows up hundreds of
rabbits; the boy blows up greyhounds that catch the rabbits. So they
win the three sacks of gold. The smith hardly knows what to do with all
his money. He builds a village and three taverns, and spends his time
loafing round. An old woman comes and begs a night’s lodging. He gives
it her. She gives him three wishes. He wishes that whoever takes his
hammer in his hand can’t put it down again, that whoever sits on his
chair can’t get up again, and that whoever gets in his pocket can’t get
out again. One day, when money had run low, a man comes to the smith
and asks will he sell himself. The smith sells himself for a bag of
gold, the time to be up in five years. After five years the man
returns. The smith gives him his hammer to hold, and goes off to his
tavern. From inn to inn the man follows him, and, finding him in the
third inn, gives him five more years’ freedom. The same thing happens
with the chair; and the smith gets five more years from the old man
(now called Beng, devil). The third time the devil finds the smith in
one of his taverns. The smith explains that he has called for drinks,
and asks the devil to change himself into a sovereign in his (the
smith’s) pocket to pay for them. The devil does so. The smith returns
home, and goes to bed. At night he hears a great uproar in his
trousers’ pocket, gets up, puts them on the anvil, and hammers. The
devil promises never to meddle with him in future if he will release
him. The smith lets him go. Afterwards the smith dies, and goes to the
devil’s door and knocks. An imp of Satan comes out.
‘Tell your father the smith is here.’
The little devil went and told his father.
‘He will kill us all,’ said the devil, ‘if we let him in. Here, take
this wisp of straw, and light him upstairs to God.’
The little devil did so. The smith went to heaven. There he sat and
played the harp. And there we shall all see him one day unless we go to
the devil instead.
Cf. Ralston’s ‘The Smith and the Demon,’ p. 57, and ‘The Pope with
the Greedy Eyes,’ p. 351; Dasent’s ‘The Master-Smith’ (Tales from
the Norse, p. 106); Clouston, ii. 409; a curious Nigger version
from Virginia, ‘De New Han’,’ plainly derived from a European
source, which I published in the Athenæum for 20th August 1887, p.
215, and give here as an appendix; Reinhold Köhler’s essay, ‘Sanct
Petrus, der Himmelspförtner’ (Aufsätze über Märchen und
Volkslieder, pp. 48–78); ‘L’Anneau de Bronze’ in Carnoy and
Nicolaides’ Traditions Populaires de l’Asie Mineure, p. 62; and
Grimm’s ‘Brother Lustig,’ No. 81 (i. 312, 440). With the last
compare this sketch of a story, which M. Paul Bataillard got from
Catalonian Gypsies encamped near Paris in 1869, and which very
closely resembles one of the Cento Novelle Antiche, summarised by
Crane (Italian Popular Tales, p. 360).
St. Peter travels with Christ as his servant, and they are often hard
put to it for a livelihood. Christ sends St. Peter to find a sheep,
and, bidding him cook it, goes to heal a sick person, who rewards him
richly. Peter eats the sheep’s liver and kidneys, and Christ, when he
comes back, asks where the liver and kidneys are, ‘for Jesus, who is
God, knows everything.’ Peter replying that the sheep had none, at the
end of their meal Christ divides into three heaps the large sum
received from the farmer whom he has healed. ‘For whom are these three
heaps?’ asks Peter. ‘The two first for each of us,’ Christ answers,
‘and the third for him who ate the liver and kidneys.’ ‘That was me,’
says Peter. ‘Very well,’ Christ answers, ‘take my share as well. I
return to my own.’ And then it is that Christ takes the cross, etc.
‘You see,’ the narrator ended, ‘that it was God Jesus who at the
beginning of the world founded all the estates of men—first doctors,
for he healed for money—and who taught the Gypsies to beg and to go
barefoot, whilst St. Peter instructed them how to deceive their like.’
In another Catalonian-Gypsy story, Christ sends St. Peter to a farm
to get an omelette or some roasted eggs, and Peter returns with the
omelette hidden in his hat, intending to keep it for himself. Two
other pseudo-Christian legends of Christ travelling with St. Peter
were told to M. Bataillard by an Alsatian Gypsy, but he had
forgotten them (Letter of 22nd April 1872). Ralston has a legend
(p. 346) of a Gypsy who learns of God, through St. George, that
‘his business is to cheat and to swear falsely,’ so opens business
by stealing the saint’s golden stirrup.
Lastly Dr. von Sowa gives this confused but curious Slovak-Gypsy
tale:—
NO. 60.—THE OLD SOLDIER
There was a very old soldier; he was twelve years in military service.
Then the colonel asked him, ‘My good man, what do you want for having
served me so many years here? Whatever you want I will give you, for
you have served me well so many years. I will give you a beautiful
white horse, and I will give you three big tobacco-pipes, so that
you’ll smoke like a gentleman. I will give you three rolls for your
journey. The whole company never served as well as you have served me.
I left everything to you; you have performed every sentry.’
‘If I went home on furlough, I should weep bitterly. How can I leave
you, my good comrades? Now I go home, shall never see you more; I have
none but my God and good comrades. I was a good soldier, the sergeant
over the entire company. The major has given me a beautiful white horse
to go home on. O God, I am going; but I have not much money, only a
little.’
When he had come into great forests, there came a beggar and begs of
the soldier. He said to him, did the soldier, ‘O God! what can I give
you? I am, you see, a poor soldier, and I have far to go, yet my heart
is not heavy. But, wait a bit, O beggar, I will give you a roll.’ Then
he bade him farewell.
Afterwards the same beggar came again to the soldier, and begs of him,
‘O my soldier, give me something, make me a present.’
‘How can I make you a present, seeing I have given already to four
beggars? But wait, here I’ll give you these couple of kreutzers, to get
a drink of brandy with.’
Well, he went further. Again a third beggar met him; again he begs of
him. ‘My God!’ he said to him, ‘I am a poor soldier; I have no one but
God and myself. I shall have no money; I shall have nothing for myself;
I’m giving you everything. My God! what am I to do? I’m an old soldier,
a poor man; and, being so poor, where shall I now get anything? I gave
you everything—bread, money, and my white horse. Now I must tramp on
alone on my old legs. No one ever will know that I was a soldier. But
my Golden God be with you, farewell.’
Then the beggar said to the soldier, ‘Old soldier, I permit you to ask
whatever you will. For I am God.’
The soldier answered, ‘I want nothing but a stick that when I say
“Beat” will beat every one and fear nobody.’
God gave it him. ‘Tell me now what do you want besides.’
‘Give me further a sack that if I say to a man “Get in” he must
forthwith get into it.’
‘Good, but you still may ask for a third gift. Only think well, so that
God in your old days may succour you.’
‘I want nothing but a sack that will let fall money when shaken.’
God gave him that too, and went off. The old soldier goes further,
comes to a city, comes into an inn. There were many country-folk and
other people of all sorts. He sits down to table, and orders victuals
and drink. Straightway the gentleman brought him something to eat. When
he had eaten and drunk, he asks him to pay. He takes the sack, shakes
it; golden pieces come tumbling out. He paid them all to the gentleman,
and went away. The gentleman was right glad that he had given him all
that money.
He goes further, came into a vast forest. There were four-and-twenty
robbers; they kept an inn there, and sold what one required. He went
in, and orders victuals to eat and brandy to drink; forthwith they
brought him brandy strong as iron. He drank; he got drunk. ‘Now pay.’
He takes the sack, and shook out golden pieces, and hands them over. He
paid the robbers, but he did not know that they were robbers. When he
had paid up, they marvel to see him shake a sack like that and the
money come falling out. They took him, take the sack, and go into
another room. There four of them held him down, whilst two shake the
sack; the money came tumbling out to their hearts’ desire. They told
their chief, seize the soldier, and kill him, and cut him in pieces;
then they hung up his body like an ox on a peg. Let us leave them and
come to the soldier. When he got to paradise, my Golden God let him be,
but not long. ‘Do you, Peter, go to that old soldier, and ask him what
he wants here.’ Good, Peter came. ‘What are you wanting?’ ‘I just want
the peace of God.’ ‘Hah! I’ll ask God if he will let you stay here.’
Peter went to my God and asks him, ‘God, that old soldier is wanting
your peace.’ ‘Go to the devils; tell them all to lay hold of him, tear
him in pieces, and put as much wood as possible beneath the pot, so as
to roast him thoroughly.’ Well, they cooked him to shreds; but after
all had to chuck him out, for he knocked them about so that he broke
their bones. A second time my God sent Death for him, and him too the
old soldier thrashed. But now he is dead and rotten, and we are alive.
This very confused story Professor von Sowa got from a Gypsy lad,
A. Facsuna. Another Gypsy, with whom he conversed about Gypsy
folk-tales, said that it should be much longer, and told him in
Slovak that, Death refusing to repeat his visit, God at last
finished the old soldier’s existence by sending him so much vermin
that he died.
NO. 61.—THE DRAGON
A lord, his wife, and his daughter live at a great castle. A poor lad
is engaged to mind the sheep. The daughter gives him bread and beer in
a basket for lunch. The old lord explains that previous servants have
always come back with one cow short. In the field a little man comes to
Jack. Jack gives him as much as he can eat; and the little man gives
Jack a plum. The little man explains that a giant in a neighbouring
castle steals a cow daily. He gives Jack a pennyworth of pins, and bids
him put them in the giant’s drink. Jack goes to the giant, and asks for
work. The giant goes to get drinks, and Jack mixes up the pins in the
giant’s glass. The giant drinks, falls ill, and dies. Jack tells the
little man how he has fared, and returns with the full tale of cows.
The master is surprised. Presently his daughter comes in. She tells
Jack that to-morrow she is to be killed by a dragon, and would like him
to be there to see. Jack refuses, but gives the girl a plum, which she
eats. Next morning she gives him his food, and off he goes. He shares
it as before with the little man, who bids him take a key, unlock a
large door, and take out a black horse and black clothes, with a sword
he will find there. Then, having watered his horse, he is to go and
fight the dragon. He goes, and knocks the dragon about with his sword.
The dragon shoots fire from his mouth, but the horse throws up the
water he has drunk, and quenches it. Jack puts back the horse, changes
his clothes, and goes home with the cows. He gives another plum to the
girl, who has to meet the dragon again next day, and asks Jack to be
there. He refuses. Next morning she gives Jack his food, and Jack at
the little man’s suggestion asks for more. He gets it, goes, and shares
it with the little man. It is the same as before, only this time he
gets a white horse and white clothes. The little man tells Jack that
to-morrow is the last day of the fight, and bids him rise early, and
ask the young lady to send more food. Jack gives her another plum. This
time she prepares the food over-night, as she has to meet the dragon at
daybreak. She wants Jack to come and see, but he refuses—‘must see
after the cows.’ He gets a red horse and red clothes this time, and the
horse drinks the water dry. The fire from the dragon burns the lady’s
hair, but the horse’s flood of water quenches it; and between them they
kill the dragon. The lady cuts off a lock of Jack’s hair with a golden
scissors. He returns to the castle, and there the girl tells him about
the fight and gets another plum. Then there is the usual dinner. Every
guest has to lay his head in the lady’s lap to let her see whether the
lock matches, Jack having meanwhile gone off as usual with his cows,
and shared his food with the little man. They fail to match the hair,
so they bring up the servants—Jack last of all, wearing the red clothes
underneath his own rags. He marries the young lady, and they live first
in the dead giant’s castle, and then, the parents having died, in her
father’s.
No exact parallel, but the story reminds one inter alia of the
sheep-grazing episode in ‘Mare’s Son’ (No. 20), and of the
Polish-Gypsy ‘Tale of a Foolish Brother and of a Wonderful Bush’
(No. 45).
NO. 62.—THE GREEN MAN OF NOMAN’S LAND
There was a young miller, who was a great gambler. Nobody could beat
him. One day a man comes and challenges him. They play. Jack wins and
demands a castle. There it is. They play again, and Jack loses. The man
tells Jack his name is the Green Man of Noman’s Land, and that unless
Jack finds his castle in a year and a day he will be beheaded. The time
goes by. Jack remembers his task, and sets out in cold and snow. He
comes to a cottage, where an old woman gives him food and lodging. He
asks her if she knows the Green Man. ‘No,’ she says; ‘but if a quarter
of the world knows I can tell you.’ In the morning she mounts on the
roof and blows a horn. A quarter of all the men in the world came. She
asks them. They do not know the Green Man, and she dismisses them.
Again she blows the horn, and the birds come. She asks them; they don’t
know; and she dismisses them. She sends Jack on to her elder sister,
who knows more than she does. She lends Jack her horse, and gives him a
ball of thread to place between the horse’s ears. He comes to the
second sister’s house. ‘It is long,’ she says, ‘since I saw my sister’s
horse.’ He eats and sleeps, then asks about the Green Man. She knows
not, but will tell him if half the world knows; so goes on the roof and
blows a horn. Half the world come, but they do not know the Green Man.
‘Go,’ she says, and blows the horn again. Half the birds in the world
come, but with a like result. She takes her sister’s horse, and gives
Jack hers, with a ball of thread, and sends him on to the eldest
sister. It is the same thing there. The third sister also doesn’t know,
but in the morning goes on the roof and blows a horn. All the people in
the world come, but do not know the Green Man. ‘Go.’ Again she blows,
and all the birds come, but do not know. She goes down and looks in her
book, and finds that the eagle is missing. She blows again; the eagle
comes; and she abuses him. He explains that he has just come from the
Green Man of Noman’s Land. She lends Jack her horse, and bids him go
till he comes to a pool and sees three white birds, to hide, and to
steal the feathers of the last one to enter the water. He does so. The
bird cries and demands its feathers. Jack insists on her carrying him
over to her father’s castle. She denies at first that she is the Green
Man’s daughter, but at last carries him over, and when across becomes a
young lady. Jack goes up to the castle and knocks. The Green Man comes
out: ‘So you’ve found the house, Jack.’ ‘Yes.’ The Green Man sets him
tasks, the loss of his head the penalty of failure. The first task is
to clean the stable. As fast as he throws out a shovelful of dirt,
three return. So Jack gives it up, and the girl, coming with his
dinner, does it for him. The Green Man accuses him of receiving help;
he denies it. The second task is to fell a forest before mid-day. Jack
cuts down three trees and weeps. The girl brings his dinner, and does
it for him, warning him not to tell her father. The same accusation is
met with the same denial. The third task is to thatch a barn with a
single feather only of each bird. Jack catches a robin, pulls a feather
from it, lets it go then, and sits down despairing. The girl brings his
food, and performs his task for him, warning him of the next task, the
fourth one. This is to climb a glass mountain in the middle of a lake
and to bring from the top of it the egg of a bird that lays one egg
only. The girl meets him at the edge of the lake, and by her suggestion
he wishes her shoe a boat. They reach the mountain. He wishes her
fingers a ladder. She warns him to tread on every step and not miss
one. He forgets, steps over the last rung, and gets the egg; but the
girl’s finger is broken. She warns him to deny having had any help. The
fifth task is to guess which daughter is which, as in the shape of
birds they fly thrice over the castle. Forewarned by the girl, Jack
names them correctly. The Green Man thereupon gives in, and Jack weds
his daughter.
For the ball of thread, see pp. 221, 233; and for looking in the
book, p. 12. Blowing a blast and summoning all the birds, occurs in
the Roumanian-Gypsy story of ‘The Three Princesses and the Unclean
Spirit,’ p. 38 (cf. the Welsh-Gypsy ‘Jack and his Golden
Snuff-box,’ p. 214, where likewise the eagle comes last). So too in
Dasent’s ‘Three Princesses of Whiteland’ (cf. Folklore for December
1890, p. 496, and note on p. 17 of Georgeakis and Pineau’s Folklore
de Lesbos). The ‘Green Man of Noman’s Land’ offers close analogies
to the Polish-Gypsy story of ‘The Witch’ (No. 50), and is identical
with Campbell’s West Highland tale, ‘The Battle of the Birds’ (No.
2), in a variant of which the hero plays cards with a dog, loses,
so has to serve him. Reinhold Köhler has treated Campbell’s story
very fully in Orient und Occident, ii. 1864, pp. 103–114, where he
gives Irish, Norse, Swedish, German, and Indian variants. The
Indian variant, from the Sanskrit verse Kathá Sarit Sagara of
Somadeva (eleventh century A.D.) is of high interest. In it the
hero, by the help of his beloved, performs tasks set by her father,
a cannibal Râkshasa; one of those tasks is the picking out of the
beloved from among her sisters, as in ‘The Green Man of Noman’s
Land.’ Then, as in ‘The Witch,’ we get the pursuit, with
transformations and final victory. What Köhler does not point out
is that the two birds in Campbell’s story correspond very closely
to the two birds that figure so often in Indian folk-tales, e.g. in
‘The Bēl Princess’ (Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy-tales, p. 149).
NO. 63.—THE BLACK LADY
A young girl goes to service at an old castle with the Black Lady, who
warns her not to look through the window. The Black Lady goes out. The
girl gets bored, looks through the window, and sees the Black Lady
playing cards with the devil. She falls down frightened. The Black Lady
comes in and asks her what she has seen. ‘Nothing saw I; nought can I
say. Leave me alone; I am weary of my life.’ The Black Lady beats her,
and asks her again, ‘What saw you through the window?’ ‘Nothing saw I,’
etc. The girl runs off and meets a keeper, who takes her home, and
after some years marries her. She has a child, and is bedded. Enter the
Black Lady. ‘What saw you through the window?’ ‘Nothing saw I,’ etc.
The Black Lady takes the child, dashes its brains out, and exit. Enter
the husband. The wife offers no explanation, and the husband wants to
burn her, but his mother intercedes and saves her this time. But the
same thing happens again, and the husband makes a fire. As she is being
brought to the stake, the Black Lady comes. ‘What saw you through the
window?’ ‘Nothing saw I,’ etc. ‘Take her and burn her,’ says the Black
Lady. They fasten her up, and bring a light. The same question, the
same answer. The Black Lady sees that she is secret, so gives her back
her two children, and leaves her in peace.
A story of the ‘Forbidden Room’ type (cf. Clouston, i. 198–205). An
incomplete Italian variant is cited there; much closer parallels
are Grimm’s No. 3, ‘Our Lady’s Child’ (i. 7 and 341), and Dasent’s
‘The Lassie and her Godmother’ (p. 198). For playing cards with the
devil, see p. 120; and cf. also this passage from the
Roumanian-Gypsy story of ‘The Vampire’ (No. 5, p. 18):—‘“Tell me
what did you see me doing?” “I saw nothing.” And he killed her
boy.’
NO. 64.—THE TEN RABBITS
In a little house on the hill lived an old woman with her three sons,
the youngest of them a fool. The eldest goes to seek his fortune, and
tells his mother to bake him a cake. ‘Which will you have—a big one and
a curse with it, or a little one and a blessing in it?’ He chooses a
big cake. He comes to a stile and a beautiful road leading to a castle;
he knocks at the castle door, and asks the old gentleman for work. He
is sent into a field with the gentleman’s rabbits. He eats his food,
and refuses to give any to a little old man who asks for some. The
rabbits run here and there. He tries to catch them, but fails to
recover half of them. The gentleman counts them, and finds some
missing, so cuts the eldest brother’s head off, and sticks it on a
gatepost. The second brother acts in the same way, and meets the same
fate. The fool also will seek his fortune. He chooses a little cake
with a blessing. His mother sends him with a sieve to get water for
her. A robin bids him stop up the holes with leaves and clay. He does
so, and brings water. He gets the cake and goes. He sees his two
brothers’ heads stuck on the gateposts, and stands laughing at them,
saying, ‘What are you doing there, you two fools?’ and throwing stones
at them. He enters, dines, and smiles at the old gentleman’s daughter,
who falls in love with him. He goes to the field, lets the rabbits go,
and falls asleep. The rabbits run about here and there. An old man by
the well begs food, and Jack shares his food with him. Jack hunts for
hedgehogs. He can’t get the rabbits back, but the old man gives him a
silver whistle. Jack blows, and the rabbits return. The old gentleman
counts them, and finds them correct. The girl brings Jack his dinner
daily in the field. The old man tells Jack to marry her. He does so,
still living as servant in the stable till the old people’s death. Then
he takes over the castle, and brings his mother to live with him.
A very imperfect story, still plainly identical with Dasent’s
‘Osborn’s Pipe’ (Tales from the Fjeld, p. 1), where it is hares
that Boots has to tend, and an old wife gives him a magic pipe.
According to an article in Temple Bar for May 1876, pp. 105–118,
the same story is told of the Brussels ‘Manneken,’ the well-known
bronze figure, not quite a metre high, by Duquesnoy (1619). Here a
boy has to feed twelve rabbits in the forest, gets a magic whistle
from an old woman, befools a fat nobleman, the princess, and the
king, and finally marries the princess. In the heads of the two
brothers stuck on the gateposts, Mr. Baring-Gould may find a
confirmation of his theory that the stone balls surmounting
gateposts are a survival of the practice of impaling the heads of
one’s enemies. Anyhow, in the Roumanian-Gypsy story of ‘The Three
Princesses and the Unclean Spirit’ (No. 10, p. 39), the old wife
threatens the hero, ‘I will cut off your head and stick it on
yonder stake’ (cf. also Campbell’s West Highland Tales, i. p. 51,
line 20). For the big cake with curse or the little cake with
blessing, cf. p. 219. The hunting for hedgehogs is a very Gypsy
touch.
NO. 65.—THE THREE WISHES [136]
A fool lives with his mother. Once on a hillside he finds a young lady
exposed to the heat of the sun, and twines a bower of bushes round her
for protection. She awakes, and gives him three wishes. He wishes he
were at home: no sooner said than done. On the way he catches a glimpse
of a lovely lady at a window, and wishes idly that she were with child
by him. She proves so, but knows not the cause. She bears a child, and
her parents summon every one from far and near to visit her. When the
fool enters, the babe says, ‘Dad, dad!’ Disgusted at the lover’s low
estate, the parents cast all three adrift in a boat. The lady asks him
how she became with child, and he tells her. ‘Then you must have a wish
still left.’ He wishes they were safe on shore in a fine castle of
their own. They live happily there for some time, then return home, and
visit the girl’s parents splendidly dressed. The parents refuse to
believe him the same man. He returns in his old clothes. Triumph and
reconciliation. He provides for his old mother.
This story is largely identical with Hahn’s No. 8, ‘Der Halbe
Mensch’ (i. 102; ii. 201), which lacks, however, the episode of
making a bower for the fairy. That episode forms the opening of
Wratislaw’s Illyrian-Slovenish story of ‘The Vila’ (No. 60, p.
314), otherwise different. And the whole Welsh-Gypsy story is
absolutely identical with Basile’s story of Peruonto in the
Pentamerone (i. 3). For the recognition of the father by the child
see Clouston, ii. 159, note. In Hahn’s story the child gives its
father an apple; and in Friedrich Müller’s Hungarian-Gypsy story,
No. 3, ‘The Wallachian Gypsy,’ a lady is adjudged to him to whom
she shall throw a red apple. Cf. also Hahn, i. 94, ii. 56; Bernhard
Schmidt’s Griechische Märchen, pp. 85, 228; and Reinhold Köhler in
Orient und Occident, ii. 1864, pp. 304, 306.
NO. 66.—FAIRY BRIDE
A king has three sons, and knows not to which of them to leave his
kingdom. They shoot for it with bow and arrows. The youngest shoots so
far that his arrow is lost. He seeks it for a long time, and at last
finds it sticking in a glass door. He enters and finds himself in the
home of the Queen of the Fairies, whom he marries. After a while he
returns home with his bride. An old witch who lives in the park incites
the king to ask the fairy bride to fetch him a handkerchief which will
cover the whole park. She does it, and then is asked to bring her
brother. She refuses, but finally summons him. He enters, and terrifies
the king by his threatening aspect. ‘What did you call me for?’ The
king is too frightened to answer coherently. The fairy’s brother kills
him and the old witch, and vanishes. They live at the castle.
Arrows occur in the Bukowina-Gypsy story of ‘Mare’s Son’ (No. 20,
p. 79). The handkerchief that will cover all the park reminds one
of the tent with room for the king and all his soldiers in an Arab
version of our No. 17, ‘It all comes to Light’ (Cosquin, i. 196).
Otherwise I can offer no parallel for this story.
NO. 67.—CINDERELLA
A glorious version, too long to take down, and now almost forgotten.
After Cinderella’s marriage the sisters live with her, and flirt with
the prince. Her children are stolen, and Cinderella is turned into a
sow. She protects the children, but at the instigation of the sisters
(or stepmother) she is hunted by the prince’s hounds and killed. The
three children come to the hall, and beg for the sow’s liver (its
special efficacy forgotten). The children are followed and further
restored to their father. Perhaps Cinderella herself comes again to
life.
Just enough to make one want more. But some day of course the whole
tale must be taken down. Meanwhile I will merely remark that in
1871–72 I frequently saw an old Gypsy house-dweller, Cinderella
Petuléngro, or Smith, at Headington, near Oxford. From her I heard
the story of ‘Fair Rosamer,’ so fair you could see the poison pass
down her throat. She was turned, it seems, after death into a Holy
Briar, which, being enchanted, bleeds if a twig be plucked.
NO. 68.—JACK THE ROBBER [137]
Now we’ll leave the master to stand a bit, and go back to the mother.
So in the morning Jack says to his mother, ‘Mother,’ he says, ‘give me
one of them old bladders as hang up in the house, and,’ he says, ‘I’ll
fill it full of blood, and I’ll tie it round your throat; and when the
master comes up to ax me if I got the sheet, me and you will be having
a bit of arglement, and I I’ll up with my fist and hit you on the
bladder, and the bladder will bust, and you’ll make yourself to be
dead.’
Now the master comes. ‘Have you got the sheet, Jack?’
And just as he’s axing him, he up with his fist, and hits his mother.
And the master says, ‘O Jack, what did you kill your poor mother for?’
‘Oh! I don’t care; I can soon bring her right again.’
‘No,’ says the master, ‘never, Jack.’
And Jack began to smile, and he says, ‘Can’t I? you shall see, then.’
And he goes behind the door, and fetches a stick with a bit of a knob
to it. Jack begin to laugh. He touches his mother with this stick, and
the old woman jumped up. (This is s’posed to be an inchanted stick.)
Says the master: ‘O Jack,’ he says, ‘what shall I give you for that
stick?’
‘Well, sir,’ he says, ‘I couldn’t let you have that stick. My
inchantment would be broke.’
‘Well, Jack, if you’ll let me have that stick, I’ll never give you
another thing to do as long as you live here.’
So he gave him £50 for this stick, and said he’d never give him nothing
else to do for him. So the master went home to the house, and he didn’t
know which way to fall out with the missus, to try this stick. One day
at dinner-time he happened to fall out with her; the dinner she put for
him didn’t please him. So he up with his fist and he knocked her dead.
In comes the poor servant-girl and says, ‘O master, whatever did you
kill the poor missus for?’
He says, ‘I’ll sarve you the same.’ And he sarved her the same.
In come the wagoner, and he asked, ‘What did he kill the missus and the
sarvint for.’ And he says, ‘I’ll sarve you the same,’ he says. He
wanted to try this stick what he had off Jack. He thought he could use
it the same way as Jack. So he touched the missus with it fust, but she
never rose. He touched the servant with it, and she never rose. He
touched the wagoner, and he never rose. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’ll try the
big end,’ he says, and he tries the knob. So he battered and battered
with the knob till he battered the brains out of the three of them.
He does no more, and he goes up to Jack and says, ‘O Jack, you’ve
ruined me for life.’ He says, ‘Jack, I shall have to drown you.’
So Jack says, ‘All right, master.’
‘Well, get in this bag,’ he says; and he takes him on his back. As he
was going along the road, he ... went one field off the road, being a
very methlyist man. During the time he was down there, there come a
drōvyer by with his cattle. Now Jack’s head was out of the sack.
‘Hello! Jack, where are you going?’
‘To heaven, I hope.’
‘Oh! Jack, let me go. I’m an older man till you, and I’ll give you all
my money and this cattle.’
Jack told him to unloosen the bag to let him out, and for him to get
into it. Away Jack goes with the cattle and the money. So the master
comes up, taking no notice of it, and he picks the bag up, and puts it
on his shoulder, and goes on till he comes to Monfort’s Bridge. [138]
He says, ‘One, two, three’; and away he chucks him over.
Well, Jack goes now about the country, dealing in cattle. So in about
three years’ time he comes round the same way again, round the master’s
place.
So, ‘Hello! Jack,’ he says, ‘where ever did you get them from?’
‘Well, sir,’ he says, ‘when you throwed me, if I’d had a little boy at
the turning to turn them straight down the road, I should have had as
many more.’
So he says, ‘Jack, will you chuck me there, and you stop at the turning
to turn them.’
So Jack says, ‘You’ll have to walk till you get there, for I can’t
carry you.’
And when he got to the bridge Jack put him in the bag, and Jack counted
his ‘One, two, three,’ same as he counted for him, and away he goes.
And Jack went back and took to the farm, and making very good use of
it. For many a night he let me sleep in the field with my tent for
telling that lie about him.
Matthew Wood gave the closing episode to Mr. Sampson, who
summarises it thus:—
NO. 69.—THE FOOL WITH THE SHEEP
The youngest of three brothers is a fool, and the two others want to
kill him. They induce him to get into a sack as the way to go to
heaven. He does so, and they take him to the sea. They stop for a drink
at a tavern. A stranger comes by with sheep. He wants to go, and takes
Jack’s place, and is thrown into the sea. Jack returns with the sheep.
The brothers find him at home with his flock, and ask where he got
them. ‘At the bottom of the sea.’ They want to go too, so Jack throws
them in, and returns home.
One of the Boswells remarked to me twenty odd years ago, ‘The folks
hereabouts are a lot of rátfalo heathens; they all think they are
going to heaven in a sack.’ Our story is a very widespread one. A
Polish-Gypsy fragment of it was printed as a specimen by Kopernicki
(Gypsy Lore Journal, iii. 132); and it occurs also in Grimm (‘The
Little Peasant,’ No. 61, i. 264, 422), Campbell of Islay (‘The
Three Widows,’ No. 39, ii. 218–238; cf. R. Köhler thereon in Orient
und Occident, ii. 1864, pp. 486–506), and Straparola (Venice, 1550:
‘Scarpafigo,’ i. 3), besides which Clouston (ii. 229–288, 489–91)
cites Irish, English, Norse, Danish, Icelandic, Burgundian, Gascon,
Sicilian, Modern Greek, Kabyle, Indian, and other versions. He
could not of course give two excellent versions from A. Campbell’s
Santal Folk-tales (1891)—‘The Story of Bitaram,’ pp. 25–32, and
‘The Greatest Cheat of Seven,’ pp. 98–101. In the first, which has
features of Grimm’s ‘Thumbling’ (No. 37) and ‘Frederick and
Catherine’ (No. 59), Bitaram, who is only a span high, by measuring
money in a paila and leaving some coins sticking in it, deludes the
king and his sons into killing all their cattle and firing their
houses so as likewise to grow rich by the sale of the hides and the
ashes. They resolve to drown him, put him in a bag, and carry him
to the river, then go to a little distance to cook their food.
Bitaram tells a herd-boy that they are going to marry him against
his will; the herd-boy takes his place; and the story ends exactly
as in the European versions, only with cows and buffaloes in place
of sheep. In the second story the rivals are induced to purchase a
‘magic’ fishing-rod and a ‘marvellous’ dog, to burn their houses,
and to kill their wives. The occurrence of this story, as of others
already cited, among the aboriginal Santals of India is exceedingly
curious. Is it perhaps to be explained by the frequent mention in
the collection of Doms (= Roms = Gypsies)? Cornelius Price’s whole
story of ‘Jack the Robber’ is a combination of ‘The Master Thief’
and ‘The Little Peasant,’ such as meets us also in Hahn’s Greek
story of ‘Beauty and the Dragon’ (No. 3, i. 75–79; ii. 178–186).
NO. 70.—THE TINKER AND HIS WIFE
Once there was a tinker and his wife, and they got into a bit of very
good country for yernin’ a few shillings quick. And in this country
there wasn’t very little lodgings. ‘Well, my wench,’ he said to his
wife, ‘I think we’ll go and take that little empty house, and keep a
little beer. Well, my wench, I’ll order for a barrel of beer.’ He has
this barrel of beer in the house. ‘Now, my wench, you make the biggest
penny out of it as ever you can, and I’ll go off for another week’s
walk.’
In the course of one day a packman come by. He says, ‘It’s gettin’ very
warm, missus, isn’t it?’
‘No, indeed,’ she says, ‘it’s very cold weather.’
‘I’ve got a very big load, and it makes me sweat, and I think it’s
warm.’
‘I sell beer here,’ she says.
He says, ‘Well, God bless you, put me a drop for this penny.’
It was one of the old big pennies, and was the biggest penny she ever
saw there. She brought him all the barrel for it. So she takes the
penny and drops it in the basin on the mantel-shelf. He was there three
days drinking till he emptied the barrel of beer. The husband comes
home at the end of the week.
‘Well, my wench, how did you get on?’
‘Well, Jack, I did very well. I sold every drop of beer.’
‘Well done, my wench, we’ll have another one and see how that goes.
Now, my wench, bring them few shillin’s down, and let’s see what you
made upon it.’
She brings the basin down, and says, ‘You telled me to make the biggest
penny on it as ever I could.’
He begin to count it, and turns the basin upside down, and empties it
on the table. And what was there but the one big penny?
‘Well! well!! well!!!’ he says, ‘you’ll ruin me now for life.’
‘Ah!’ she says, ‘Jack, didn’t you tell me to make the biggest penny out
of it as ever I could, and that was the biggest penny as ever I seen.’
‘Well,’ he says, ‘my wench, I see you don’t understand sellin’ beer. I
think I’ll buy a little pig. We’ve got plenty of taters and cabbage in
the garden. Well, now, my wench, when the butcher comes round to kill
the pig, you walk round the garden and count every cabbage that’s in
the garden, and you get a little stick, and stick it by every cabbage
in the garden, and when the butcher slays the pig up, you revide a
piece of pig up for every cabbage in the garden.’
She revided a piece of pig up for every cabbage in the garden, and
stuck it on every stick round the cabbages. The husband comes home
again.
‘Well, my wife, how did you go on with the pig?’
‘Well, Jack, I done as you told me,’ she says. ‘I got a stick and stuck
it by every cabbage, and put a piece of mate on every stick.’
‘Well! well!! well!!!’ he says, ‘where is the mate gone to now? You’ll
ruin me if I stop here much longer. Pull the fire out,’ he says, ‘and
I’ll get away from here.’ And he picks up his basket and throws it on
his shoulder. ‘Pull that door after you,’ he says.
What did she do but she pulls all the fire out and put it into her
apron. The old door of the house was tumbling down, and she picks it up
and put it on her back. So him being into a temper, he didn’t take much
notice of her behind him. They travelled on, and it come very dark.
They comes to an old hollow tree by the side of the road.
‘Well, my wench, I think we’ll stop here to-night.’
They goes up to the top of the old tree. After they got up in the tree,
the robbers got underneath them.
‘Whatever you do, my wench, keep quiet. This is a robbers’ den.’
The robbers had plenty of meat and everything, and they prayed for a
bit of fire.
She says, ‘Jack,’ she says, ‘I shall have to drop it.’
So she drops the fire out of her apron, and it goed down the hollow
tree.
‘See, what a godsend that is,’ said one.
They cooked the meat as they had. ‘The Lord send me a drop of vinegar,’
says one.
‘Thank God for that,’ says that other one. ‘See what a godsend ’tis to
us.’
Now, the door’s fastened to her back yet, and she says, ‘Jack, I shall
have to drop it.’
‘Drop what?’ he says.
‘I shall have to drop the door, Jack,’ she says, ‘the rope’s cutting my
shoulders in two.’
So she drop the door down the hollow tree, and it went
dummel-tummel-tummel down the tree, and these robbers thought ’twas the
devil himself coming. They jumps up, and away they goes down the road
as hard as ever they could go. The time as they run, Jack’s wife goes
down the tree and picks up the bag of gold what they’d left. Being
frightened as they’d had such godsends to ’em, they left all behind.
They had one brother as was deaf and dumb. Him being a very valuable
[139] fellow, he thought he’d come back to see what was the matter. He
come peepin’ round the old tree. Who happened to see him but Jack’s
wife. And he went ‘A a a a a a’ to her.
‘Come here,’ she says, ‘I can cure your speech.’
She made motions with her own mouth for him to put his tongue out. She
drew the knife slightly from behind her as he put his tongue out, and
cut half of his tongue off. Him being bleeding, he went ‘Awa wa wa wa
wa,’ putting his hand to his mouth and making motions to his brothers.
And when he got back to his brothers, them seeing him bleeding, they
thought sure the devil was there.
I never see Jack nor his wife nor the robbers sense after they left the
tree.
Matthew Wood furnished another (imperfect) Welsh-Gypsy version:—
NO. 71.—WINTER
An old man and woman, very poor, live in a cottage. The old man saves
up money in a stocking for winter. A beggar comes to the door. The old
woman asks his name. ‘Winter.’ ‘Here is money, my old man, saved for
you.’ The old husband comes home. They leave the cottage, the old woman
taking the door with her (reason not given), and camp out in a tree.
Robbers come and camp underneath, and quarrel over the division of
their spoil. They want change for £1. One says he will have change if
he goes to the devil for it. Down falls the door. The robbers think it
is the devil, and fly, leaving the money. The old man and woman seize
it, and return to their cottage.
Halliwell’s Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales (1849), p. 31, has a
story of ‘The Miser and his Wife,’ where the beggar calls himself
‘Good Fortune.’ A most unlikely name, whereas Winter, it is worth
remarking, was the name of a Northumbrian Gypsy family (Simson’s
History of the Gypsies, 1865, p. 96), as also of German Gypsies.
‘The Story of Mr. Vinegar’ (Halliwell, p. 26), obtained from oral
tradition in the West of England, tells how a husband and wife go
off, taking the door, climb a tree, let the door fall on thieves,
and get the booty. A very Rabelaisian passage in Price’s story,
which I have omitted, explains why Vinegar. That story is identical
with Grimm’s ‘Frederick and Catherine’ (No. 59, i. 238–244 and
417–18); for putting meat among the cabbages, cf. Grimm’s Diemel
variant. In Campbell’s Santal Folk-tales, p. 30, Bitaram climbs
into a tree for safety when darkness comes on, ‘as wild beasts
infested the forest through which he was passing. During the night
some thieves came under the tree in which he was, and began to
divide the money they had stolen. Bitaram then relaxed his hold of
his dry cowhide, which made such a noise as it fell from branch to
branch that the thieves fled terror-stricken, and left all their
booty behind them. In the morning Bitaram descended, and collecting
all the rupees carried them home.’ And in F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake
Stories from the Panjab, p. 242, there is another most curious
parallel, where the robber captain puts out his tongue, and, snip!
the barber’s clever wife bites the tip off clean. ‘What with the
fright and the pain, he tumbled off the branch and fell bump on the
ground, where he sat with his legs very wide apart, looking as if
he had fallen from the skies. “What is the matter?” cried his
comrades, awakened by the noise of his fall. “Bul-ul-a-bul-ul-ul!”
said he, still pointing upwards. “The man is bewitched,” cried one;
“there must be a ghost in the tree.”’ From India to Wales I know
not how many thousands of miles; neither know I how many centuries
since the forebears of the tellers of these two tales parted
company. Cf. also Hahn, i. 221.
NO. 72.—THE BLACK DOG OF THE WILD FOREST
There was a king and queen in the north of Ireland, and they had one
son. The son had to be revoured when he came of age by the Black Dog of
the Wild Forest, and his father was very fond of his son. When he came
close to the time when he had to be revoured, his father took him a
shorter journey every day; and one day his father saddled the best
horse as he had in his stable, and gave him as much money as he liked
to take with him. He galloped away as hard as ever he could till he got
benighted. He rode some hundreds and hundreds of miles, and he could
see a small little light a little distance off him, maybe a hundred
miles off him to the best of his knowledge in the dark, and he makes
for this little light. And who was living there but an old witch.
‘Well, come in, [140] my king’s son,’ she said, ‘from the North of
Ireland. I know you aren’t very well.’
And so when he comes in, she puts him in the ess-hole under the fire.
He hadn’t been in there but twenty minutes, but in comes the Black Dog
of the Wild Forest, spitting fire yards away out of his mouth, th’ owd
lady and her little dog named Hear-all after him. But they beat him.
‘Now,’ she says, ‘my king’s son, please to get up. You can have your
tea now. We have beat him.’
So he gets up, has his tea with her, and gives a lot of money to the
old lady, which says they have got a sister living from her three
hundred miles. ‘And if you can get there, ten to one she will give you
her advice to get safe. I will give you my favours, the bread out of my
mouth, that is Hear-all, the dog. I will give you that dog with you.’
He gallops on, gallops on, till he gets benighted. He looks behind him
on the way he was going; his horse was getting very tired; and he could
see the Black Dog of the Wild Forest after him. And he gallops on till
he comes to t’other sister’s house.
‘Well, come in,’ she says, ‘my king’s son from the North of Ireland. I
know you aren’t very well.’
She puts him down into the ess-hole again, sir; and she had a little
dog named Spring-all. If they fought hard the first night they fought
fifteen times harder with Hear-all and Spring-all and th’ owd lady
herself.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘my king’s son, I will do the best as ever I can for
you. I will give you Spring-all, and I will give you the rod. Don’t
forget what I tell you to do with this rod. You follow this ball of
worsted. Now it will take you right straight to a river. You will see
the Black Dog of the Wild Forest, and s’ever you get to this river, you
hit this rod in the water, and a fine bridge will jump up. And when you
get to t’other side, just hit the water, and the bridge will fall in
again, and the Black Dog of the Wild Forest cannot get you.’
He got into another wild forest over the water, and he got romping and
moping about the forest by himself till he got very wild. He got moping
about, and he found he got to a castle. That was the king’s castle as
he got over there to. He got to this castle, and the gentleman put him
on to a job at this castle.
So he says to him, ‘Jack, are you ony good a-shooting?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he says, ‘I can shoot a little bit. I can shoot a long way
further.’
‘Well, will you go out to-day, Jack, and we will have a shot or two in
the forest?’
They killed several birds and wild varmints in the forest. So him being
sweet upon a daughter at this big hall, her and Jack got very great
together. Jack tuck her down to the river to show her what he could do
with his rod, him being laughing and joking with her. The king wanted a
bridge made over the river, and he said there was no one as could do
it.
‘My dear,’ says Jack, ‘I could do it,’ he says.
‘With what?’ she says.
‘With my rod.’
He touched the water with his rod, and up springs as nice a bridge as
ever you have seen up out of the water. Him being laughing and joking
with this young girl, he come away and forgot the bridge standing. He
comes home. Next day following he goes off again shooting with the king
again, and the Black Dog of the Wild Forest comes to the king’s house.
He says to th’ owd lady herself, ‘Whatever you do to-morrow, Jack will
be going out shooting again, and you get Jack to leave his two little
dogs, as I am going to devour Jack. And whatever you do, you fasten ’em
down in the cellar to-morrow, and I will follow Jack to the forest
where he is going shooting. And if Jack kills me, he will bring me back
on the top of his horse on the front of him; and you will say to him,
“O Jack, what ever are you going to do with that?” “I am going to make
a fire of it,” he will say. And he will burn me, and when he burns me
he will burn me to dust. And you get a small bit of stick—Jack will go
away and leave me after—and you go and rake my dust about, and you will
find a lucky-bone. And when Jack goes to his bed, you drop this
lucky-bone in Jack’s ear, he will never rise no more, and you can take
and bury him.’
Now the old lady was against Jack a lot for being there. So the Black
Dog of the Wild Forest told th’ owd lady the way to kill Jack. ‘So see
as when Jack brings me back and burns me, you look in my dust, and you
will find a lucky-bone, and you drop it when Jack goes to bed, drop it
into his ear, and Jack will never rise from his bed no more, he will be
dead. Take Jack and bury him.’
Jack goes to the forest a-shooting, and the Black Dog of the Wild
Forest follows him, and Jack begin to cry. Now if the fire came from
his mouth the first time, it came a hundred times more, and Jack begin
to cry.
‘Oh dear!’ he cried, ‘where is my little Hear-all and Spring-all?’
He had no sooner said the words, five minutes but scarcely, comes up
the two little dogs, and they ’s a very terrible fight. But Jack
masters him and kills him. He brings home the Black Dog of the Wild
Forest on the front of his horse; he brings him back, Jack, on the
front of his horse; and the king says, ‘What ever are you going to do
with that?’
‘I’m going to burn him.’
After he burns him, he burns him to dust.
The Black Dog of the Wild Forest says to th’ owd lady, ‘When Jack burns
me to dust, you get a little stick and rake my dust about, and you will
find a lucky-bone. You drop that lucky-bone in Jack’s ear when he goes
to bed, and Jack will never waken no more, and then you can take and
bury him, and after that Jack is buried there will be no more said
about him.’
Well, th’ owd woman did do so, sir. When Jack went to bed, she got this
lucky-bone and did as the Black Dog of the Wild Forest told her. She
did drop it in Jack’s ear, and Jack was dead. They take Jack off to
bury him. Jack been buried three days, and the parson wondered what
these two little dogs was moping about the grave all the time. He
couldn’t get them away.
‘I think we’ll rise Jack again,’ he says.
And s’ever they rise him, off opened the lid of the coffin, and little
Hear-all jumped to the side of his head, and he licked the lucky-bone
out of his ear. And up Jack jumped alive.
Jack says, ‘Who ever put me here?’
‘It was the king as had you buried here, Jack.’
Jack made his way home to his own father and mother. Going on the road
Jack was riding bounded on the back of his horse’s back. Hear-all says
to him, ‘Jack,’ he says, ‘come down, cut my head off.’
‘Oh dear, no! Hear-all. I couldn’t do that for the kindness you have
done for me.’
‘If you don’t do it, Jack, I shall devour you.’
He comes down off his horse’s back, and he kills little Hear-all. He
cuts his head off, and well off timed [ofttimes] he goes crying about
Hear-all, for what he done. Goes on a little further. Spring-all says
to him, ‘Jack, you have got to come down and serve me the same.’
‘Oh dear, no!’ he says, ‘Spring-all, I shall take it all to heart.’
‘Well,’ he says, ‘if you don’t come down, Jack,’ he says, ‘I will
devour you.’
Jack comes down, and he cuts his head off, and he goes on the road,
crying very much to hisself about his two little dogs. So going on this
road as he was crying, he turned his head round at the back of his
horse, looking behind him, and he sees two of the handsomest young
ladies coming as ever he saw in his life.
‘What are you crying for?’ said these ladies to him.
‘I am crying,’ he said, ‘about two little dogs, two faithful dogs, what
I had.’
‘What was the name of your little dogs?’
‘One was named Hear-all, and the t’other was named Spring-all.’
‘Would you know them two dogs if you would see them again?’
‘Oh dear, yes!’ says Jack. ‘Oh dear, yes!’ says Jack.
‘Well, I am Hear-all, and this is Spring-all.’
Away Jack goes home to his father and mother, and lives very happy
there all the days of his life.
A capital and very curious story, but plainly imperfect: Jack, of
course, should marry the princess. There is a very West Highland
ring about it, yet I cannot match it from Campbell, nor indeed
elsewhere. At the same time many of the incidents are familiar
enough. For the balls of worsted and the three helpful sisters (or
brothers, hermits, etc.), cf. John Roberts’ story of ‘An Old King
and his Three Sons’ (No. 55, pp. 220–234). The bridge-making
episode suggests a combination of the Passage of the Red Sea and
the bridge-making ball of yarn in ‘The Companion’ (Dasent’s Tales
from the Fjeld, p. 73). The lucky-bone in the ear reminds one of
the pin which, driven into the heroine’s head, causes
transformation into a bird (Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales, pp.
12, 14, 253; and Laura Gonzenbach’s Sicil. Märchen, i. p. 82), or
of the comb, poisoned apple, etc., in Grimm’s ‘Snow-white’ (No.
53), and its Chian, Albanian, and other variants, which produce, as
in Jack’s case, suspended animation. For the cutting off of the
helpful animal’s head, under a threat, and the consequent
transformation, cf. the Scottish-Tinker story of ‘The Fox’ (No.
75).