Chapter III: Bukowina-Gypsy Stories (3)

So the man dragged himself to the brook, and kept feeling with his hand till he found the water. And he washed his face, and his eyes were restored to him. And he went into the city where they had stopped the water. ‘What will you give me if I release the water?’

‘What you want, we will give you.’

‘Well, come with me to the mountain, take to you iron crowbars.’

So they went to the mountain, and raised the stone; and the water flowed plentifully.

‘Well, now, what do you want, man, for releasing the water?’

‘Give me a carriage and two horses and a carriageful of money.’

They gave them to him. He went to the emperor’s daughter. ‘What will you give me if I make her strong?’

‘What you want, I will give you.’

‘Set water on the fire to boil.’

And he went and took out the toad, and threw it into the bath; and they washed the emperor’s daughter, and she grew stronger and fairer than ever.

‘What do you want for making her strong and fair?’

‘Give me two horses and a carriageful of money, and give me a driver home.’

So he went home, and sent the servant to his brother, to borrow a bushel. And his brother asked, ‘What to do with the bushel?’

‘To measure money with.’

His brother gave him the bushel, and went himself and asked his brother, ‘Where did you get it, the money, from, and the horses?’

‘From there where you left me.’

‘Lead me, too, thither to that place. I am sorry, brother.’

‘Don’t be sorry; you’ve just got to go. Well, come, brother.’

So they both went to the place where he dug out his eyes.

‘Give me, brother, a bit of bread.’

‘Give me an eye.’

He gave him an eye, and he gave him a bit of bread.

And they went further. ‘Give me, brother, a bit more bread.’

‘Give me one more eye.’

‘I will, brother.’

So he gave him a bit more bread, and took him by the hand, and led him under the gallows, and left him there, and departed. At nightfall came the devils, and perched on the gallows. And the biggest devil asked, ‘What have you done? where have you been to in the world?’

One said, ‘Don’t tell, for there was lately a blind man under the gallows, and he heard what we said. And he made himself eyes, and made the water run, and raised up the emperor’s daughter. Stay, while I look under the gallows.’

And they found the blind man. ‘There’s a blind man here.’ And they rent him all in pieces. Then the devils departed; the man was dead.

This story is told as well as story may be. There is a Gypsy
variant, longer but not half so good, from the Hungarian
Carpathians, in Miklosich’s Beiträge, p. 3:—

NO. 31.—THE THREE BROTHERS

There was, there was not, a lord; and he had three sons. And one was the eldest son, and he said to his father, ‘We will go somewhere to seek a livelihood.’

‘Well, go, my sons,’ said their father.

When they went, he baked loaves for each one to put in his wallet. Then they went a long way, and the youngest had most bread. And that youngest brother said, ‘Brothers mine, I cannot carry this wallet, so first we will eat from my wallet, brothers mine.’

When they had eaten, they then went a long way further, and then those two brothers ate, and gave not to the third. He now had nothing, and says, ‘Brothers mine, why don’t you give me to eat? You ate up mine, and now you don’t give me to eat.’

‘If you’ll let one of your eyes be taken out, then we will give you to eat,’ said the two elder brothers. And then they took out his eye, and then gave him to eat. When they had eaten, they went a long way further. And there again those two brothers eat, and the third one says, ‘Why don’t you give me to eat? Now you’ve taken my eye out, and yet give me nothing to eat.’

‘If you’ll let your other eye be taken out, then we will give you to eat.’

And he, the youngest, says, ‘Just do with me what you will.’

Then they took out his eye; then they gave him to eat; then that eyeless one said, ‘Lead me under the cross; maybe some one will give me something.’

They led him not under the cross, but under a gallows, and there hung a dead man. And then thither came three crows, and thus talked one with another:

‘What’s the news in your country?’ thus they asked one of them. ‘What’s the news?’

‘In my country there is no water.’

‘And in your country what’s the news?’

‘There’s a dew there, if a blind man rubs his eyes with it, he forthwith sees.’

‘And in your third country what’s the news?’

‘In my country there is a princess sick.’

And then those three crows went to the lad, and then they asked him what he was doing under the gallows.

And he said, ‘My brothers brought me here.’

And then those three crows flew away. And that lad feels in the grass with his hands, then he put it on his eyes, then he moistened his eyes; forthwith he saw. And then that lad departed to the king. That lad was then the king’s servant, and went then to a city, and went up above the city, and saw there such a great rock, and struck that rock as with a rod; forthwith the water came from the rock. And then that water flowed into the city, where there was no water, there flowed that water, and the people were greatly rejoiced. And then he, that lad, cried that the water will always flow; then were the people greatly rejoiced that that water was flowing.

And then that boy went to another city, and there was a sick princess. He went to that king, and asked him, ‘What’s this princess got?’

‘What’s she got! she’s sick.’

‘If you will give me her to wife, then I will help her,’ said that lad to the king.

‘Do but help her, then we will give you her to wife.’

When he had healed her, then he took her to wife; and then they held the bridal seven whole years. And then he became young king.

That young king said to his soldiers, ‘Hark ye, soldiers, go after my two brothers.’

Then those soldiers went after those two brothers, and then they brought the brothers. Then that young king asks them, ‘How many brothers had you?’

And they said, ‘We are only two.’

The king says, ‘Hah! were there ever more of you?’

Then those two brothers say, ‘We were three.’

Then, ‘What have you done with the third one?’

‘Done with him! He demanded of us to eat, then we took out his eyes.’

Then, ‘I am he,’ thus did that young king say. ‘Now, what am I to do with you?’

Those two brothers say, ‘Lead us under that cross.’

He led them under that very cross. When he had led them, there came again those same three crows. When they had come, again they asked one another, ‘What is the news in your country?’

‘In my country now is the princess well.’

‘And in your second country what is the news?’

‘In my country now is much water.’

‘And in your third country what is the news?’

‘There now is no such dew as they rubbed the eyes with.’

Then those three crows came to those two lads, and then there those crows say, ‘We will tear these two lads.’ And they tore and devoured them. And then those three crows flew away, and flew into the sky.

With its then’s and its that’s, a very imperfect, schoolboyish
version. It does not tell how the hero cured the princess, or that
his two brothers were blinded. Non-Gypsy variants of this
widespread story are Grimm’s ‘The Two Travellers’ (No. 107, ii.
81), Cosquin’s ‘Les Deux Soldats de 1689’ (No. 7, i. 84), Denton’s
Servian story of ‘Justice or Injustice’ (p. 83), Wratislaw’s ‘Right
always remains Right’ (Lusatian, No. 14, p. 92), Hahn’s ‘Gilt Recht
oder Unrecht’ (No. 30, i. 209), and others cited by Clouston (i.
249–261) from Norway, Portugal, the Kabyles, the Kirghiz, Arabia,
Persia, and India. The borrowing the bushel occurs in the ‘Big
Peter and Little Peter’ group of stories (cf. Clouston, i. 120, ii.
241–278; and Campbell’s Santal Folk-tales, pp. 30, 100), of which
we have a Welsh-Gypsy version (No. 68), and which have a certain
affinity with ‘The Rich and the Poor Brother.’ ‘Prince Half-a-Son’
in F. A. Steel’s Indian Wide-awake Stories, p. 290, is plainly
analogous. On p. 277 we have ‘a great rich wedding that lasted
seven years and seven days.’

NO. 32.—THE ENCHANTED CITY

There was a poor lad, and he served seven years, and could not earn anything. And he went into the world, and went into a city, and spent the night there, and lay down under a wall, and slept. In that wall there was a hole, and he awoke, and looked through the hole, and saw a candle. And he crept through the hole, and went into a palace. There was a great city, and there was an emperor in the city; and the emperor was dead, and also the empress was dead. And the emperor had a daughter, and she commanded the army. And that city was excommunicated, and the people were turned into stone. So the lad went into the palace of the emperor, and there in the palace all were turned into stone. And he marvelled what this might be, that the men were like men, but yet were all turned into stone.

A cat came, and set food on the table. He sat down to table, and ate. At night came the cat, and brought him food, and brought him cards, and said to him, ‘There will come a lord, and will say, “Play at cards,” and do you play; and he will spit on you, and do you bear it, but look at the clock. When it strikes ten, then give him a slap.’

Then there came devils as many as the blades of grass; and they beat him and tormented him till twelve o’clock; and the cocks crowed, and they fled. He lay down in the bed and slept. In the morning the cat brought him food, and he ate. At nightfall she again brought him food, said to him, ‘He will come again for you to play with him, and do you play till ten o’clock, and give him a slap; and they will come to you as many as all the blades of grass, and will beat you and torment you, and do you bear it till twelve o’clock.’

The lord came to him. ‘Hah! let us play cards.’

And they played till ten o’clock. He gave him, the devil, a slap. They came as many as all the blades of grass, and they beat him and tormented him till twelve o’clock, and they fled. He lay down in the bed and slept. In the morning he heard the folks talking in the city. In the morning the cat brought him food, and brought him royal clothes. He ate, and put on the clothes, and went into twelve chambers. There was the emperor’s daughter in her bed. One half was alive, and she said, ‘You are my emperor, and I am your empress, but come no more to me.’

Again at night the cat brought him food, and said to him, ‘He will come again to-night to play cards till ten o’clock. At ten o’clock give him a slap again, and they will come to you as many as all the blades of grass, and they will beat you and torment you, but bear it.’

That lord came to him. ‘Hah! let us play cards.’

And they played till ten o’clock. He gave him a slap, and they came as many as all the blades of grass, and they beat him and tormented him, and he bore it till twelve o’clock. At twelve o’clock they fled. He lay down on the bed and slept. In the morning the band began to play, they held a review. [88] ‘For we have a new emperor.’ The ministers came to him, and raised him shoulder-high. ‘We have a new emperor.’

And he is in a hurry to go to his empress, and said, ‘Stay here, I will be back immediately.’

And he went to her. There she stood with her head to the roof, and a vapour went forth from her mouth; and he opened the door, and she just made a sign to him with her hand, and fell back on the bed, and became stone up to the waist. And she called him to her. ‘Leave me; I want you not. Why did you not wait to come to me, till I should obtain remission of my sins? Take you my father’s horse and his sword, and take a purse; as much money as you want, it shall not fail.’

He set out, and journeyed, and departed into another kingdom. There two emperors were fighting, because one would not give his daughter to the other’s son. ‘Set yourself to battle with me, since you refuse your daughter.’ They fought seven years. So he [89] came into that city, and came to an inn, to a certain Armenian. And there was a great famine; the soldiers were dying of hunger. So he asked the Armenian, ‘What’s the news here?’

‘No good. They have been waging a great war seven years here for a girl, and the soldiers are dying of hunger.’

And he said, ‘Go and call them to me.’

The soldiers came, and he bought bread and brandy, and they drank and ate; and he said to the Armenian, ‘I, if I choose, I will cut that army to pieces.’

The Armenian went to the emperor. ‘Emperor, a king’s son is come, and has boasted that he by himself will cut that army to pieces.’

‘Call him to me.’

‘What is this you’ve been boasting? will you cut that army to pieces?’

‘I will.’

‘If you do, I will give you my daughter, and give you one half of my kingdom.’

And he, when he went to battle, waved to the right hand, and slew one half of the army, and he waved to the left hand, and slew the other half. And he came home, and the emperor gave him his daughter, and made a marriage.

‘Ask him what strength is his, that he slew so great an army.’ [90]

And he said, ‘My sword slays.’

And she sent back a letter, ‘The sword alone slays; send me another sword, and I will send this one to you.’

She sent him the sword, and he then said, ‘Set yourself now to battle with me.’

And he went in hope. But the emperor slew him, and cut him all in pieces, and put him in the saddle-bags, and placed him on his horse, and said, ‘Whence thou didst bear him living, bear him dead.’ [91]

The horse carried him home, thither to that lady who was of stone. She cried, ‘Bring him to me.’ She laid him on a table, and put him all together; and she sprinkled him with dead water, and he became whole; and she sprinkled him with living water, and he arose. [92]

‘Go back; take you this purse, you have but to wish and you will find it full of money. And go to that Armenian, and give him whatever he wants, and tell him you will turn yourself into a horse. Take a hair from my tail, [93] and bind it round you like a girdle, and fling a somersault.’ [94]

So he turned himself into a horse; and the Armenian took him, and led him into the city. The emperor bought him, and mounted him. He dashed him to the earth, and he died. The horse took the sword in his mouth, and went to the Armenian. The Armenian loosened the hair, and he became a man again. He made the Armenian king; and he departed home to his mistress, the first one, and wedded her. And he became emperor.

A mere ruin of a folk-tale, but what a fine ruin. The cat reminds
one of Grimm’s No. 106, ‘The Poor Miller’s Boy and the Cat’ (ii.
78, 406), where the cat takes the hero into an enchanted castle,
and gives him to eat and to drink. But Grimm’s No. 92, ‘The King of
the Golden Mountain’ (ii. 28, 390), comes much closer to our Gypsy
story. There the hero has three nights running to let himself be
tortured in a bewitched castle by twelve black men till twelve
o’clock, so to set free an enchanted maiden. Grimm’s No. 121, ‘The
King’s Son who feared Nothing’ (ii. 134, 419), should also be
compared, and our Welsh-Gypsy story, ‘Ashypelt’ (No. 57). The
latter half of ‘The Enchanted City’ is identical with Krauss’s No.
47 (i. 224), a Slovenian story. For the magic sword cf. infra, p.
160; Clouston’s notes to Lane’s Continuation of Chaucer’s ‘Squire’s
Tale’ (Chaucer Soc. 1888, pp. 372–381); Wratislaw’s Polish story,
‘The Spirit of a buried Man,’ No. 18, p. 122; and F. A. Steel’s
Wide-awake Stories, p. 62. Playing cards with the devil or a
monster occurs also in our No. 63 (p. 256), and in folk-tales from
Russia, Germany, French Flanders, Lorraine, and Brittany (cf.
Ralston, p. 375; Grimm, No. 4, i. 16, 346; and Cosquin, i. 28; ii.
254, 259, 260).

NO. 33.—THE JEALOUS HUSBAND

There was a merchant, great and wealthy, and he had a beautiful wife; he did not let her go out. And he went in a ship on the Danube after merchandise with another merchant. And they were coming home. They hauled their ships to the bank, and moored them to the bank, to pass the night. They fell into discourse. Said one, ‘Has your wife got a lover at home?’

And he said, ‘My wife has not got a lover.’

‘Come, what will you give me if I become her lover?’

‘If you do, I will give you my estate, and my merchandise too, ship and all.’

‘How will you know that I am her lover?’

‘If you tell me her birth-mark, and if you take the gold ring from her finger. But my wife will be like to thrash you, if you but hint such a thing to her. I left a maid with her, to see that my wife does not go out of doors.’

‘I shall succeed, though.’

‘Go home and try; I’ll bring your ship.’

Home he went. What will he do? for he cannot come near her. He found an old wife. ‘Old wife, what am I to do to get the ring from the lady?’

‘What will you give me if I contrive that you get it?’

‘I will give you a hundred florins.’

‘Get a big chest made, and a window in it, and get into it, and make a bolt inside, and I will carry you to her.’

She carried him in the chest under the wall of her house, and went to the lady. ‘I beg you, lady, to take in my box of clothes, so that they may not be stolen.’

‘Carry it into the hall.’

She called the maid, and the maid helped her to carry him into the hall.

‘I beg you, lady, to let me take it right into your house. I will come in the morning to fetch it.’

‘Well, put it in a corner.’

The old woman went off home. The lady at night took a bath, and laid the ring on the table, and washed herself. And through the little window he perceived a mole under her right breast. The lady slept all night in her bed, and forgot the ring on the table, and put out the candle. And he let himself out, took the ring off the table, and got back into the chest, shut himself in. The old woman came next morning at daybreak, and carried her chest outside. He opened it, and came out, and took the chest, and departed. He went to meet the husband, and found him on the way.

‘Hast thou lain with my lady?’

‘I have.’

‘What is her birth-mark?’

‘She has a mole under her right breast. If you do not believe me, here is the ring as well.’

‘It’s all right; take the ship and everything in it, and come home, and I will give you also the estate.’

He went home, and said never a word to the lady; and he made a little boat, and put her in it, and let it go on the Danube. ‘Since you have done this, away you go on the Danube.’ He gave his whole estate, and became poor, and carried water for the Jews.

A whole year she floated on the Danube; the year went like a day. An old man caught her, and drew her to shore, and opened the boat, and took her out, and brought her to his house. She abode with him three years, and spun with her spindle, and made some money. And she bought herself splendid man’s clothes, and dressed herself, and cut her hair short, and went back to her husband. She went and passed the night beneath a lime-tree, and slept under the lime-tree. In that city the emperor was blind. She saw a dream: in the lime-tree was a hole, and in the hole was water; and if the emperor will anoint himself with that water he will see. She arose in the morning, and searched around, and found the hole. And she had a little pail, and she drew water in the pail, and put it in her pocket, and went into that city to an inn, and drank three kreutzers’ worth of brandy. And she asked the Jew, ‘What’s the news with you?’

‘Our emperor is blind, and he will give his kingdom to him who shall make him see.’

‘I will do so.’

The Jew went to the emperor, and the emperor said to him, ‘Hah! go and bring him to me.’

They brought him to the emperor. ‘Will you make me see? then I will give you my daughter.’

She took water, and anointed his eyes, and he saw. The emperor set his crown on her head. ‘Do you be emperor. I want nothing but to stay beside you.’ The emperor clad her royally, called his army, beat the drum. ‘For there’s a new emperor.’

And she saw her husband carrying water for the Jews. ‘Come hither. Have you always been poor?’

‘No, I once was not poor, I was rich. I had an estate, and I was a great merchant.’

‘Then how did you lose your estate?’

‘I lost it over a wager. My wife played the wanton with another, and I gave up the estate, and sent her adrift on the Danube.’

Straightway she sent for the other, and they brought him. ‘How did you come by this man’s estate?’

‘Over a wager.’

‘What was your wager?’

‘That I would lie with her.’

‘Then you did so?’

‘I did.’

‘And, pray, what were her birth-marks?’

‘Under her right breast she had a mole.’

‘Would you know that mole again?’

‘I would.’

Then she drew out her breast. ‘Did you lie with me?’

‘I did not.’

‘Then why those falsehoods? Here, take him, and cut him all to pieces.’

And she looked earnestly on her husband. ‘You, why did you not ask me at the time?’

‘I was a fool, and I was angry.’

‘Here, take him outside, and give him five-and-twenty, to teach him wisdom.’

She threw the robes off her, and put them on him. ‘Do you be emperor, and I empress.’

Were I a painter, I would paint a picture—the Forest of Arden, a
Gypsy encampment, with tents, dogs, donkeys, and children, a Gypsy
story-teller, and Shakespeare. But one knows, of course, that
Shakespeare derived the material of his Cymbeline from the novel of
Boccaccio (Dec. ii. 9), immediately in all likelihood, and not
through the second story in Westward for Smelts. Granted he did,
the question arises next, whence did Boccaccio get his material?
Did he invent it, and, if so, is this Gypsy story derived from
Boccaccio, and not it only, but Campbell’s West Highland tale of
‘The Chest’ (No. 18), Larminie’s ‘Servant of Poverty’ (West Irish
Folk-tales, pp. 115–129), and at least two other folk-tales cited
by Köhler—one in Wolf’s German Hausmärchen, p. 355, and one from
Roumania in Ausland, 1856, p. 1053? Campbell’s story at any rate
cannot have come from Boccaccio, containing, as it does, the
essence, not merely of Cymbeline, but also of The Merchant of
Venice. For its hero borrows £50 on condition that if he does not
repay it within a year and a day he is to lose a strip of skin cut
from his head to his foot; [95] ‘Yes,’ says the heroine, ‘but in
cutting it, not one drop of blood must be shed.’ To go fully into
this question would occupy pages and pages; I must content myself
with referring to The Remarks of M. Karl Simrock on the Plots of
Shakespeare’s Plays, with notes by J. O. Halliwell (Shakespeare
Soc. 1850), pp. 64–75 and 45–63, and to Reinhold Köhler on
Campbell’s tale in Orient und Occident, ii. 1864, pp. 313–316. But
it is just worth pointing out that Gypsies may have had a
considerable influence on the European drama. The Scottish Gypsies
who, as recorded in the Introduction, used yearly to gather in the
stanks of Roslin during the last half of the sixteenth century,
acted there ‘severall plays.’ We have not the dimmest notion what
those plays may have been; still, this would be quite an early item
in any history of the stage in Scotland. Sir William Ouseley in his
Travels in Persia (1823), iii. 400–405, gives a long description of
a Persian puppet-play, curiously like our own Punch and Judy: ‘the
managers of these shows, and the musicians who attended them, were
said to be of the Karachi or Gypsy tribe.’ I myself at Göttingen,
in 1873, several times came across a family of German Gypsies, very
full-blooded ones, who were marionette-showers; like a dull dog, I
never went to see their shows. Gorger (Rómani gaújo, Gentile or
man) is current theatrical slang for a manager; and Mayhew’s London
Labour and the London Poor (1851) shows that the slang of our
English show-folk contains a good many Rómani words. The very
Pandean pipes are suggestive of importation from South-east Europe.
Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister offers something to the purpose, so also
do the Bunjara players in Mrs. F. A. Steel’s On the Face of the
Waters (1896); and my own In Gypsy Tents, pp. 295–6, gives a glance
at an English travelling theatre whose performers spoke fluent
Rómani.

NO. 34.—MADE OVER TO THE DEVIL

There was a rich man, and he went into the forest, and fell into a bog with his carriage. And his wife brought forth a son, and he knew it not. And the Devil came forth, and said, ‘What will you give me if I pull you out?’

‘I will give you what you want.’

‘Give me what you have at home.’

‘I have horses, oxen.’

‘Give me that which you have not seen.’

‘I will.’

‘Make a covenant with me.’

He made a covenant with him, and the Devil pulled him out of the mud, and the man went home. By the time he got home he had forgotten the covenant.

The boy was twenty years old. ‘Make me a cake, mother, for I’m off to the place my father pledged me to.’ And he went far over the mountains, and came to the Devil’s house. There was an old woman in the house, and a daughter of the Devil’s, and she asked him, ‘Whither art going, lad?’

‘I have come to the lord here, to serve.’

And the girl saw him, and he pleased her. ‘I may tell you that he is my father. My father will turn himself into a horse, and will tell you to mount him and traverse the world. And do you make yourself an iron club and an iron curry-comb, and hit him with the club, for he will not stoop, and get on his back, and as you go keep hitting him on the head.’

He traversed the world, and came home, put him in the stable, and went to the maiden.

‘My father didn’t fling you?’

‘No, for I kept hitting him on the head.’

The Devil called him, and took a jar of poppy-seed, and poured it out on the grass, and told him to gather it all up, and fill the jar, for, ‘If you don’t, I will cut off your head.’

He went to the maiden, and wept.

‘What are you weeping for?’

‘Your father has told me to fill the jar with poppy-seed; and if I don’t, he will cut off my head.’

She said, ‘Fear not.’ She went outside and gave a whistle, and the mice came as many as all the blades of grass and the leaves.

And they asked, ‘What do you want, mistress?’

‘Gather the poppy-seed and fill the jar.’

And the mice came and picked up the grains of poppy-seed one by one, and filled the jar.

The Devil saw it. ‘You’re a clever chap. Here is one more task for you: drain the marsh, and plough it, and sow it, and to-morrow bring me roasted maize. And if you do not, I shall cut your head off.’

He went to the maiden and wept. ‘Your father has told me to drain the marsh, and give him roasted maize to-morrow.’

‘Fear not.’

She went outside, and took the fiery whip. And she struck the marsh once, and it was dried up; a second time she struck, and it was ploughed; the third time she struck, it was sowed; the fourth time she struck, and the maize was roasted; and in the morning he gave him roasted maize.

She said to him, ‘We are three maidens. He will make us all alike, will call you to guess which is the eldest, which is the middle one, and which the youngest; and you will not be able to guess, for we shall be all just alike. I shall be at the top, and notice my feet, for I shall keep tapping one foot on the other; the middle one will be in the middle, and the eldest fronting you, and so you will know.’

The Devil said to him, ‘One more task I will give you. Fell the whole forest, and stack it by to-morrow.’

He went to the maiden, and the maiden asked him, ‘Have you a father and mother?’

‘I have.’

‘Ah! let us fly, for my father will kill you. Take the whetstone, and take a comb; I have a towel.’

They set out and fled. The Devil arose, saw that the forest is not felled. ‘Go and call him to me.’

Ho, ho! there is neither the lad nor the maiden.

‘Hah! go after them.’

They went, and the two saw them coming after them. And she said to him, ‘I will make myself a field of wheat, and do you make yourself to be looking at the wheat, and they will ask you, “Didn’t a maiden and a lad pass by?” “Bah! they passed when I was sowing the wheat.”’

‘Go back, for we shall not catch them.’

They went back. ‘We did not catch them.’

‘On the road did not you find anything?’

‘We found a field of wheat and a peasant.’

‘Go back, for the field of wheat was she, and he was the peasant.’

They saw them again. She said to the lad, ‘I will turn a somersault and make myself an old church, and do you turn a somersault and make yourself an old monk, and they will ask you, “Didn’t a maiden and a lad pass by?” “They passed just as I began the church.”’

‘Ah! go back, for we shall never catch them. When he was beginning the church! It is old now.’

‘Did you not find anything on the road?’

‘We found a church and a monk.’

‘The church was she, and he was the monk. I will go myself.’

They saw him. ‘Now my father is coming; we shall not escape. Fling the comb.’

He flung the comb, and it became a forest from earth to sky. Whilst he was gnawing away the forest, they got a long way ahead. He was catching them up; she cried, ‘Fling the whetstone.’

He flung the whetstone, and it became a rock of stone from earth even to heaven. Whilst he, the Devil, was making a hole in the rock, they got a long way ahead. Again he is catching them up. ‘Father is catching us up.’ She flung the towel, and it became a great water and a mill. They halted on the bank.

And he cried, ‘Harlot, how did you cross the water?’

‘Fasten the millstone to your neck, and jump into the water.’

He fastened the millstone to his neck, and jumped into the water, and was choked.

She said, ‘Fear not, for my father is choked.’

He went to his father with the maiden. His father rejoiced; but the maiden said to the lad, ‘I will go to expiate my father’s sins, for I choked him. I go for three years.’

She took her ring, and broke it in half, and gave one half to him. ‘Keep that, and do not lose it.’ She departed for three years.

He forgot her, and made preparations to marry. He was holding his wedding. She came, and he knew her not.

‘Drink a glass of brandy.’

She drank out of his glass, and flung the half of the ring into the glass, and gave it to him. When he drank, he got it into his mouth, and he took it in his hand and looked at it, and he took his half and fitted the two together. ‘Hah! this is my wife; this one saved me from death.’

And he quashed that marriage, and took his first wife and lived with her.

There are several obvious lacunæ in this story, one that the
poppy-seed must have been mixed with some other seed, else the task
would have been far too easy. The Polish-Gypsy story of ‘The Witch’
(No. 50), corresponds pretty closely; and for the roasted maize
task compare the Roumanian-Gypsy story of ‘The Snake who became the
King’s Son-in-law’ (No. 7). For a multitude of non-Gypsy variants
see Ralston’s ‘The Water-King and Vasilissa the Wise’ (pp.
120–133), especially the Indian story at the end. Cf. also Cosquin,
ii. 9, and i. 103, 106, 139, 141. The ring episode recurs in the
Bohemian-Gypsy story, ‘The Three Dragons’ (No. 44, p. 154). The
fiery whip in the Gypsy story is, to the best of my knowledge,
unique.

NO. 35.—THE LYING STORY

Before I was born, my mother had a fancy for roast starlings. And there was no one to go, so I went alone to the forest. And I found roast starlings in the hollow of a tree. I put in my hand, and could not draw it out. I took and got right in, and the hole closed up. I set out and went to my godfather to borrow the axe.

My godfather said, ‘The servant with the axe is not at home, but,’ said my godfather, ‘I will give you the hatchet, and the hatchet is expecting little hatchets.’

‘Never fear, godfather.’

And he gave me the hatchet, and I went and cut my way out of the tree, and I flung down the hatchet. Whilst it was falling a bird built its nest in the handle, and laid eggs, and hatched them, and brought forth young ones; and when the hatchet had fallen down, it gave birth to twelve little hatchets. And I put them in my wallet, and carried them to my godfather. My godfather rejoiced. He gave me one of the hatchets, and I stuck it in my belt at my back, and went home. I was thirsty and went to the well. The well was deep. I cut off my brainpan, and drank water out of it. I laid my brainpan by the well, and went home. And I felt something biting me on the head; and when I put up my hand to my head there came forth worms. I returned to my brainpan, and a wild-duck had laid eggs in my brainpan, and hatched them, and brought forth ducklings. And I took the hatchet, and flung it, and killed the wild-duck, but the ducklings flew away. Behind the well was a fire, and the hatchet fell into the fire. I hunted for the hatchet, and found the handle, but the blade of the hatchet was burnt. And I took the handle, and stuck it in my belt at my back, and went home, and found our mare, and got up on her. And the handle cut the mare in half, and I went riding on two of her legs, and the two hind ones were eating grass. And I went back, and cut a willow withy, and trimmed it, and sewed the mare together. Out of her grew a willow-tree up to heaven. And I remembered that God is owing me a treeful of eggs and a pailful of sour milk. And I climbed up the willow, and went to God, and went to God’s thrashing-floor. There twelve men were thrashing oats.

‘Where are you going to, man?’

‘I am going to God.’

‘Don’t go; God isn’t at home.’

And the smiths felled the willow, and I took an oat-straw and made a rope, and let myself down. And the rope was too short, and I kept cutting off above, and tying on below; then I jumped down, and came to the other world. I went home, and got a spade, and dug myself out [of the other, or nether world], and went home, and gave the starlings to my mother, and she ate, and was safely delivered of me, and I am living in the world.

One is reminded of Münchausen and of several lying tales in Grimm,
e.g. Nos. 112, 138, 158, and 159. Cf. especially his notes at ii.
413. The very first Gypsy folk-tale I ever took down, twenty years
ago now, from one of the Boswells, was the following lying tale:—

NO. 36.—HAPPY BOZ’LL

Wonst upon a time there was a Romano, and his name was Happy Boz’ll, and he had a German-silver grinding-barrow, and he used to put his wife and his child on the top, and he used to go that quick along the road he’d beat all the coaches. Then he thought this grinding-barrow was too heavy and clumsy to take about, and he cut it up and made tent-rods of it. And then his donkey got away, and he didn’t know where it was gone to; and one day he was going by the tent, and he said to himself, ‘Bless my soul, wherever’s that donkey got to?’ And there was a tree close by, and the donkey shouted out and said, ‘I’m here, my Happy, getting you a bit o’ stick to make a fire.’ Well, the donkey came down with a lot of sticks, and he had been up the tree a week, getting firewood. Well then, Happy had a dog, and he went out one day, the dog one side the hedge, and him the other. And then he saw two hares. The dog ran after the two; and as he was going across the field, he cut himself right through with a scythe; and then one half ran after one hare, and the other after the other. Then the two halves of the dog catched the two hares; and then the dog smacked together again; and he said, ‘Well, I’ve got ’em, my Happy’; and then the dog died. And Happy had a hole in the knee of his breeches, and he cut a piece of the dog’s skin, after it was dead, and sewed it in the knee of his breeches. And that day twelve months his breeches-knee burst open, and barked at him. And so that’s the end of Happy Boz’ll.

Also Münchausen-like; but I believe it was largely this story,
which I printed on p. 160 of my In Gypsy Tents, that led the great
Lazarus Petulengro to remark once to Mr. Sampson, ‘Isn’t it
wonderful, sir, that a real gentleman could have wrote such a
thing—nothing but low language and povertiness, and not a word of
grammar or high-learned talk in it from beginning to end.’

We have a third Gypsy lying story, a Welsh-Gypsy one. Matthew
Wood’s father had, like a good many Gypsies, a contempt for
folk-tales, and, when called on for his turn, he always gave this,
the very shortest one:—‘There were a naked man and a blind man and
a lame man. The blind man saw a hare, and the lame man ran and
caught it, and the naked man put it in his pocket.’ Cf. Grimm’s No.
159, ‘The Ditmarsch Tale of Wonders’ (ii. 230, 452). Indian lying
stories occur in Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales, Nos. 4, 8, 17.