"Do you remember the agreement we made? I must tear the skin off your
back: that is your salary."
He tears the skin off, as he had said, and sends him away home without
anything. His mother was in great grief at seeing him come home so
thin and weak, and without any money.
He tells what has happened, and the second brother wishes to start off
at once, saying that he is strong, and that he will do more work. The
mother did not like it, but she was obliged to let him go.
He goes to the same house as his brother, and makes the same terms
with the master. When he had almost finished his year, his master
sends him too to sow fourteen bushels of wheat. He starts very early
in the morning, with two pair of oxen; but the night came before he
had sown it all. The master was very glad at the sight of that. He
strips his skin off his back also, and sends him away without any
money. Think of the vexation of this mother in seeing both her sons
return in this fashion.
The third wishes to start off at once. He assures his mother that
he will bring back both the money and the skin of his back. He goes
to this same gentleman. He tells this one, too, that he will give
him a high salary, on condition that he will do all that he shall
tell him to do, otherwise he shall have the skin torn off his back,
and be sent away without anything, at the end of the year.
He had made him work hard and well for ten months, and then wished
to try him. He sent him to the field, and told him to sow fourteen
bushels of wheat before night. He answers, "Yes."
He takes two pairs of oxen, and goes off to the field. He ploughs a
furrow all round the field, and throws his fourteen bushels of wheat
into it. He then makes another furrow, to cover it up, and at night
time he goes home to the house. The master is astonished. He asks
him if he has sown it.
"Yes, it is all under ground; you may be sure of it."
The master was not pleased; he had his fears.
The next day he sends him with sixteen head of cattle to such a field,
and says to him,
"You must take all these cattle into the field without unlocking the
gate or making a gap."
Our lad takes a hatchet, a hoe, and a fork. Off he goes, and when he
gets to the field he kills them all, one by one. He cuts them up with
the hatchet, and throws them with the fork into the field.
He comes home at nightfall, and says to his master that all the cattle
are in the field as he had told him. The master was not pleased,
but he said nothing.
The next day he told him to go to such a forest and to bring a load
of wood from there, but all the sticks quite, quite straight. Our lad
goes off and cuts down in the chestnut copse all the young chestnut
trees which his master had planted, and which were very fine ones;
and he comes home. When the master saw that, he was not pleased,
and said to him,
"To-morrow you shall go again with the oxen; and you must bring a
load of wood quite crooked, all quite crooked; if you bring only one
straight, so much the worse for you."
The lad goes off, and pulls up a fine vineyard. After he had loaded
his cart, he comes home. When the master saw that, he could not say
anything; but he did not know what to think of it.
He sends him into a forest. There was a Tartaro there; and all the
persons, and all the animals who went there, he ate them all. The
master gives him ten pigs, and also food for ten days, telling him
that the hogs would fatten themselves well there, because there were
plenty of acorns, and that he must return at the end of ten days.
Our lad begins, and he goes on, and on, and on. He meets an old woman,
who says to him:
"Where are you going to, lad?"
"To such a forest, to fatten these pigs."
The woman says to him:
"If you are not a fool, you will not go there. That horrible Tartaro
will eat you."
This woman was carrying a basket of walnuts on her head, and he said
to her:
"If you will give me two of these walnuts I will beat the Tartaro."
She willingly gives them to him, and he goes on, and on, and on. He
meets another old woman, who was winding thread. She says to him:
"Where are you going, lad?"
"To such a forest."
"Don't go there. There is a horrible Tartaro there, who will be sure
to eat you, and your pigs as well."
"I must go there all the same, and I will conquer him, if you will
give me two of your balls of thread."
She gives him them, willingly; and he goes on farther, and finds a
blacksmith, and he, too, asks him where he is going? And he answers,
"To such a forest, to fatten my pigs."
"You may just as well go back again. There is a terrible Tartaro there,
who will be sure to eat you."
"If you will give me a spit, I will beat him."
"I will give it you, willingly," and he gives it him with goodwill.
Our lad goes on, and comes to this forest. He cuts off the tails of
all his pigs, and hides them in a safe place. The Tartaro appears,
and says to him:
"How did you come here? I am going to eat you."
The lad says to him:
"Eat a pig if you like, but don't touch me."
He takes his two nuts, and rubs them one against the other.
"I have two balls here, and if one of them touches you, you are dead."
The Tartaro is frightened, and goes away in silence. After having
eaten a pig, he comes back again, and says to him:
"We must make a wager--which of the two will make the greatest heap
of wood?"
The Tartaro begins to cut and to cut. Our lad leaves him alone, and
when he has made a terrible big heap, he begins to go round all the
trees with his balls of thread, and says to him.
"You, that; but I, all this;" and he goes on tying and tying. The
Tartaro gives in, saying "that he is more clever than he." As he
had stopped his ten days, he makes in the night a great fire, and
makes his spit red-hot in it; and while the Tartaro was sleeping,
he plunges this spit into his only eye. After having taken his pigs'
tails, he goes away from the forest without any pigs, because the
Tartaro had eaten one every day. Near his master's house there was
"a well of the fairy." [18] Our lad sticks in there the tails of all
his hogs, excepting one, as well as he could. He then goes running
to his master, telling him that all the pigs were coming home very
gaily, and that they had got so hot in coming so fast that they
had all gone under the mud. "I wished to drag one out by pulling,
but only the tail came away; here it is."
He goes off then with the master to this marsh; but the master did
not dare go in there to pull them out. He goes off sadly with his
servant home, not knowing what to think about it. There he counts
him out his 100,000 francs, and he went home proudly to his mother
and his brothers. There they lived happily, and their master was left
with 100,000 francs less. That served him right for having so much.