The Man that stole the Parson’s Sheep
Printed in S. O. Addy, Household Tales with Other Traditional Remains, No. 17, p. 18, as collected in Calver, in Derbyshire.
This is Type 1735A, The Bribed Boy Sings the Wrong Song (Motif K1631), reported in scattered instances from Denmark, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the West Indies. Baughman gives five United States references.
“The Wee Boy and Minister Gray,” collected by Hamish Henderson from Jeannie Robertson and deposited in the Archives of the School of Scottish Studies, is a racier version. The wee boy’s second song goes:
As I strolled out one Summer’s day
Who did I spy but Minister Gray?
He was rolling Mollie amongst the hay,
He was tossing her upside downwards.
A “may” is a maid.
THERE WAS ONCE a man who used to steal a fat sheep every Christmas. One Christmas he stole the parson’s sheep, and his son, a lad about twelve years old, went about the village singing:
My father’s stolen the parson’s sheep,
And a merry Christmas we shall keep,
We shall have both pudding and meat,
But you moant say nought about it.
Now it happened one day that the parson himself heard the boy singing these words, so he said, “My lad, you sing very well; will you come to church next Sunday evening, and sing it there?”
“I’ve no clothes to go in,” said the boy. But the parson said, “If you will come to church as I ask you, I will buy you clothes to go in.”
So the boy went to church the next Sunday evening, dressed in the new clothes the parson had given him.
When the service was over, the parson said to the people, “Stay, my brethren, I want you to hear what this boy has to sing. It’s gospel truth that he’ll tell you.” For he was hoping that the boy would confess before all the people that his father had stolen the sheep. But the boy got up and sang:
As I was in the field one day,
I saw the parson kiss a may;
He gave me a shilling not to tell,
And these new clothes do fit me well.
63
The Two Little Scotch Boys
Printed by Edward M. Wilson in “Some Humorous English Folk Tales, Part I,” Folk-Lore, XLIX (1938), 182–83, No. 2, as told him by Mrs. Joseph Haddow of Haycote Farm, near Bowland Bridge in Westmorland. She heard it from a traveling Scotchman some twelve years before.
This is a modern variant of a famous international tale, Type 922, The Shepherd Substituting for the Priest Answers the King’s Questions. Related motifs are H691.1, “Riddle: How much does the moon weigh?” and H524.1, “What am I thinking?” Walter Anderson has written a celebrated monograph on the tale, Kaiser und Abt (Folklore Fellows Communications, No. 42, Helsinki, 1923). In the Grimms’ Household Tales it is No. 152, “The Little Herdsboy,” and in ballad form it is Child No. 45, “King John and the Bishop.” Type 922 assumes a rabbinical hue in Folktales of Israel, a companion volume in this series, No. 38, pp. 94–97, “A Dispute in Sign Language.”
Edwin C. Kirkland has discussed “The American Redaction of Tale Type 922” in Fabula, IV (1961), 248–59.
THESE TWO LITTLE twins their parents was—one was Catholic and t’other was Protestant. When they got to school age both parents wanted them to go to their religion’s school, like, so they said they wouldn’t quarrel over it; one could go to one school and the other to the other. Both of these boys was good scholars, but one’s master was jealous of him getting above his own son, so he said to him, “Before I put you top of your class, you’ve to answer me three questions, and I’ll give you till tomorrow morning to answer them. First is, the weight of the moon, the depth of the sea, and what am I thinking about?”
When he got home he wouldn’t play with his other brother who was sitting in a chair, so his brother asked him what was the matter. He said, “The master has given me three questions to answer before he’ll let me be top of the class.” His brother said, “What are the questions?”
When he told him, he said, “Never mind t’questions. I’ll go to your school in t’morning, and you go to mine, and we’ll ask our mates where one another sits.”
So in the morning both brothers went to opposite schools, like. After t’master called his registers out he asked him to stand up and answer his questions.
“Now my first question is the weight of the moon?”
“A hundredweight, sir,”
“How do you make that out?”
“Four quarters in a hundredweight and four quarters in the moon.”
He said, “Very good, my little boy. “Now,” he said, “the depth of the sea?”
“A stone-throw, sir.”
“How do you make that out?”
“When you throw a stone it’ll go straight to the bottom.”
“Very good, my little chap,” he said; “the third and hardest question. What am I thinking about?”
