This is classified as ATU 2030. The Old Woman and her Pig, although once again, the stubborn animal in question is not a pig, but goats who will not leave the turnip field. The chain of characters is also distinctive: instead of a mix of animals and inanimate objects, you will just see animals here, with a surprising little creature who gets the goats to finally go home!
Another distinctive feature of this story is that it also has a kind of chain-of-mourning like in ATU 2022 The Death of the Little Hen. As you will see, the characters weep when they cannot get the goats out of the turnip field, and their weeping is what prompts the recitation of the chain each time. Very elegant!
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Another distinctive feature of this story is that it also has a kind of chain-of-mourning like in ATU 2022 The Death of the Little Hen. As you will see, the characters weep when they cannot get the goats out of the turnip field, and their weeping is what prompts the recitation of the chain each time. Very elegant!
Want more? Click here for previous Stories-of-the-Day.
THE BOY AND THE GOATS
Now you shall hear!
There was once a boy who had three goats. All day they leaped and pranced and skipped and climbed up on the rocky hill, but at night the boy drove them home. One night, when he went to meet them, the frisky things leaped into a turnip field, and he could not get them out. Then the boy sat down on the hillside and cried.
As he sat there, a hare came along. "Why do you cry?" asked the hare.
"I cry because I can't get the goats out of the field," answered the boy.
"I'll do it," said the hare.
So he tried, but the goats would not come. Then the hare, too, sat down and cried.
Along came a fox. "Why do you cry?" asked the fox.
"I am crying because the boy cries," said the hare; "and the boy is crying because he cannot get the goats out of the turnip field."
"I'll do it!" said the fox.
So the fox tried, but the goats would not come. Then the fox also sat down and cried.
Soon after wolf came along. "Why do you cry?" asked the wolf.
"I am crying because the hare cries," said the fox, "and the hare cries because the boy cries, and the boy cries because he can't get the goats out of the turnip field."
"I'll do it!" said the wolf.
He tried, but the goats would not leave the field. So he sat down beside the others and began to cry too.
After a little, a bee flew over the hill and saw them all sitting there crying.
"Why do you cry?" said the bee to the wolf.
"I am crying because the fox cries, and the fox cries because the hare cries, and the hare cries because the boy cries, and the boy cries because he can't get the goats out of the turnip field."
"I'll do it!" said the bee.
Then the big animals and the boy all stopped crying a moment to laugh at the tiny bee. He do it, indeed, when they could not! But the tiny bee flew away into the turnip field and lit upon one of the goats and said, "Buz-z-z-z-z!"
And out ran the goats, every one!
NOTES
This Norse tale, found by Miss Emilie Poulsson in an old Norse reader, belongs to a type which, if one may judge from printed collections, is not so well known as the other types here illustrated. Interesting variants, however, are given in Russian, Italian, and Portuguese collections. In this story the series of personages forms a scale which suddenly decreases in physical power, and the conquest is made "not by might but by spirit."
CHAIN: boy - rabbit - fox - wolf - bee
1 comment:
Did the 3 goats wouldn't even look up if the big bad wolf huffs and puffs, so, the boy with spiky hair sat down and he started to cry, and the big bad wolf came walking down the road around the tree at that very moment, the black and white rabbit told the boy with spiky hair why is he crying, well, the big bad wolf is crying because the red fox is crying, and the red fox is crying because the black and white rabbit's crying, and the black and white rabbit's crying because the boy with spiky hair is crying, and the boy with spiky hair is crying because he can't get his 3 goats out of the garden with a barn, that's easy the red fox will do it, and so, the big bad wolf sneak into the garden with 3 goats in a barn?
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