Chapter VIII: Welsh-Gypsy Stories (3)

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.’