[48] _Kruptadia_: Heilbronn, Henninger Frères, 1884: _Breton Folk
Lore_.
There lived a maiden whose mother guarded her with infinite care lest
some youth should do her ill; and she was brought up in all innocence.
And when she begged to go to gatherings even as other maids of her age,
her mother was wont to answer her, saying:
“Nay, my daughter, thou shalt not go, for there thou art like to lose
thy maidenhead.”
One day, nevertheless, Pierre, the maiden’s lover, who was a good lad
and a quiet, came seeking to conduct her to an assembly, and both lad
and maid besought the mother to let them go. In the end she consented,
thinking in herself that Pierre was too honest to do her daughter ill,
and she enjoined him guard her well.
Behold, then, these two on their way; and as they went, the maiden said:
“My mother hath strictly enjoined me to guard my maidenhead. It seemeth
that at assemblies one is in case to lose it. How best preserve it?”
“Hath not thy mother shown thee a method of so doing?”
“Yea,” answered the maiden, “she hath enjoined me to press my thighs
tightly together.”
Quitting the road, they entered a wood wherein were several streamlets,
which one crossed by means of planks. Even as the maid walked upon one
of these planks Pierre, who marched behind her, cast a stone into the
water hard by the girl.
“Alas!” cried the maiden. “What will my mother say? Behold, my
maidenhead hath fallen in the water and is lost!”
“Fear not,” answered the lad. “‘Tis fortunate I am here. I will restore
it thee. Come with me ‘neath the trees, and say naught if the business
hurteth thee, for ‘tis all for thy good.”
Then Pierre, in very sooth, ‘put back’ the maidenhead for her, and
shortly afterward they came to the second plank. Even as the girl
stood upon it, two or three frogs, slumbering at the streamside, were
affrighted and hopped into the water, which spirted up ‘neath the
maiden.
“Ah! Pierre!” cried she. “‘Tis lost again! It seemeth that it was not
firm. ‘Twas most wrong of thee not to have put it back more firmly.”
“Say no more,” answered Pierre. “I will again put it back.”
And when the maidenhead had been put back for the second time, they
went on, reaching the assembly, where they diverted themselves as did
the others.
On their return journey, even as the young girl passed over a plank,
Pierre cast in the water an apple which he had in his pocket.
“What will my mother say?” cried the girl. “‘Tis the third time I have
lost it to-day!”
“Fear not,” quoth Pierre. “I am about to sew it on again.”
When the maidenhead had been resewed, the girl, who was acquiring a
taste for this form of embroidery, said to Pierre:
“‘Tis not sewn sufficiently firm.”
“Indeed it is.”
“‘Tis not.”
“But I have no more thread.”
“Miserable deceiver!” cried the girl. “He saith he hath no more thread,
yet all the while he possesseth two great balls of it!”[49]
[49] _Peloton_ is the word in the text, signifying, literally, _a ball
made of things (thread, silk or wool) wound round it_. The play on
words is remarkably apt in the last few lines of the story, _peloton_
exactly connoting, in the mind of the simple girl, the youth’s
testicles and pubic hair.
_VARIANT._
Béroalde de Verville, in _Le Moyen de Parvenir_, has a similar tale.
As it differs in several respects from our _Kruptadia_ version, we
give it here. Our extract is from Arthur Machen’s text, which is, so
far as we know, the only English translation of the old French Canon’s
much censured work.[50] Donatus, one of the characters in the book, is
speaking:--
[50] _Fantastic Tales or The Way to Attain: A Book full of
Pantagruelism: Now for the first time done into English_ by Arthur
Machen: Privately Printed: Carbonnek, 1890. We shall return to the
subject of De Verville’s work in a later page of this volume.
... That’s like the case of my landlady’s daughter.... One day this
young wench desired to go to a bride-ale, and asked leave of her
mother, who granted it on the condition that she would solemnly,
paragraphically, and distinctively promise to keep her maidenhead,[51]
to which condition the girl agreed with all her heart.
[51] The word is ours. Machen translates “honour.”
So she went away to the wedding, and set herself to keep guard o’er her
maidenhead. The lasses and lads all danced away, but she not a step,
nor did she dare approach the board where the others were engaged in
the quintessential operation of making ordure with the teeth. The poor
girl stayed all the time in a corner of the room, with her two hands
at the bottom of her stomach, just opposite to the diameter (I mean
opposite to the centre which so far was cut by no diameter). Coypeau,
seeing her thus dung in the mouth (I should say, down in the mouth)
came up to her and said:
“What cheer, Coz; shall we foot it awhile?”
“Nay, I dare not, for fear I lose my maidenhead; my mother bade me take
great care of it.”
“Oh, Oh,” says he, “and is that all? Why Coz, sweet Coz, follow me to
this little closet, and I’ll sew it up so tight that it shall never
fall out.”
All this he said in a whisper, but she heard him well enough, for she
was fain to be a-dancing; and so she followed him. He then proceeded to
show her how the wolf dances with his tail between his legs, and sewed
up her maidenhead so securely that he told her it would never fall out
by that way.
Thereupon she began to dance, and enjoyed herself to her heart’s
content; but she liked needlework so well that she asked for some
more, and had three stitches. (That was enough in all conscience,
though I have threaded the needle[52] for Madeleine forty-five times in
forty-four hours; five by night and by day _forté_.) Coypeau was not
quite so strong as that, but he gave the poor girl a great treat. She
ate some sweetmeats, and feeling ashamed no longer, bethought her of
her maidenhead, and went up to him, and asked him if he would give it
another stitch.
[52] _Enfiler une aiguille_, more usually, _enfiler_. The expression is
common to most erotic writers. _Vide_ various erotic lexicographers
quoted _ante_.
“Faith! “ said he, “I can’t, I haven’t any more thread.”
“Come, Come,” quoth she, “I thought I saw two nice little balls of
thread.”