The Hungry Mowers
Printed by Edward M. Wilson in “Some Humorous English Folk Tales, Part II,” Folk-Lore, XLIX (1938), 279–80, No. 16, as told in September, 1936, by Richard Harrison, who heard the tale from Darwin Leighton of Kendal, who had heard it in Berkshire.
Type 1567G, Good Food Changes Song and Motif J1341.11, “Hired men sing of displeasure with food; change song when food is improved” are reported only for Finland (five texts), England (three) and the United States (six). Baughman comments on the cante-fable form often taken by this type. The master-man becomes a master-slave relationship in Southern Negro tradition; see R. M. Dorson, Negro Folktales in Michigan (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), pp. 67–68, “The Mean Boss,” and note 37, p. 213.
“Tommy” is a humorous word for food. “Wake” is weak. “Tewit” is plover. “Hod” is hold.
THERE WAS ONCE a farmer who had a lot of hay, and he had to hire a lot of men to get it cut down. It wasn’t a very good Tommy-shop (for the wife was a bit greedy and gave, them sloppy stuff for breakfast, curds and whey and such-like), but the men didn’t know that. He managed to get about nine men who started off next day. T’farmer thought they were a bit slow over their job, so he thought he would go and see what they did and how fast they were getting on. So as he peeped over the hedge he could hear them singing:
Curds and whey
Ivery day.
Curds and whey
Ivery day.
So he ran home right away, and told his wife she wasn’t feeding them half plenty. “They are as wake as tewits; they can hardly hod their lays.”
And t’wife said, “They git a girt dinner ivery neet, an’ plenty to eat through t’day, so they shouldn’t tak’ much ’urt wi’ that.”
But t’boss said tul ’er, “I’s maister here. Tha gits tha girt ’am down an’ tha fills t’biggest pan reet full, an’ tha mun do about fowerteen eggs for t’brikfast in t’mornin’. And tha’ll see a girt change ’ll ’appen when they’ve itten that.”
“Ay, why,” she said, “I’ll likely hev to do as I’s tellt.”
Next mornin’ when they co’ down for brikfast, they seed a girt dish full o’ ham an’ eggs. So they started breakfast, and when they’d finished there was nowt left o’ t’dish. So off they started to mow their hay again, and t’boss said to t’missis, “I’ll away up and see what happens this time.” An’ when he peeped ower t’hedge they were goin’ like a steam engine:
’Am an’ eggs
Mind thi legs.
’Am an’ eggs
Mind thi legs.
84
The Farmer and His Ox
Recorded from Ruth L. Tongue, September 28, 1963, as she heard this spoof about 1906 in Somerset.
This seems to be a short form of Type 1705, Talking Horse and Dog, reported only for the United States, in Baughman’s index. His earliest reference is to a 1925 text from South Carolina. Motif B210.1, “Person frightened by animals successively replying to his remarks,” also fits.
Eric Partridge examined this genre in The “Shaggy Dog” Story: its Origin, Development and Nature (London, 1953). Collected texts were classified and analysed by Jan Harold Brunvand in “A Classification of Shaggy Dog Stories,” Journal of American Folklore, LXXVI (1963), 42–68. I follow his classification in these few examples. It seems likely that the true shaggy dog story was brought to England by the American airmen. I heard the first two when I was in the Air Force about 1944, and these both seemed rather American in type: B300.2, “The Poker-Playing Dog,” and B210, “The Talking Dog and Horse,” in this case slightly altered. About 1948 I heard “The Two Elephants” (No. 85) which seems more English in tone, and in 1953 we were subjected to a deluge of shaggy dog stories, many of them belonging to Section D, “Hoax Stories,” long elaborate narrations of which the point is that they are pointless. The tellers have now forgotten most of these stories, but two of them have retold “The Tortoises’ Picnic” (No. 88) and “The Horse Who Played Cricket” (No. 86). The fashion for these stories seems to be waning in England, but they are still told by oldish schoolchildren, and possibly by undergraduates.
THERE WERE A zurly old varmer and ’e ’ad a girt ox. One day ’e said to it, “Thee girt orkurd vule. Stupid vule thou be, I wonder who taught thee to be so orkurd!”
And the ox ’e turn round to varmer, and ’e say, “Why, it were thee, tha’ girt stupid vule!”
85
The Two Elephants
Told to Katharine M. Briggs at Comrie, Perthshire, in 1948 by John Innes, originally from Glasgow, and recently separated from the Navy.
This falls under Brunvand’s general category, B400–B499, “Stories About Animals and Humans—Miscellaneous,” although the present example is lacking. Motif B211, “Animal uses human speech,” is present here as in other shaggy dogs. The current fad for elephant jokes has resulted in The Elephant Book by Lennie Weintraub, Leonard Stern, and Larry Sloan (Los Angeles, 1963), and There’s an Elephant in My Sandwich by Marcie Hans and Lynne Babcock (New York, 1963).
AN EXPLORER WAS going through the jungle. He had gone a very long way along a narrow track when he saw an elephant. It was sitting quite still facing him, with its front feet together, very upright and quite quiet. He went by it cautiously, but it never stirred. He went on for miles and miles and miles and then he came to another elephant, with its back to him this time, but in the very same attitude as the first one. He was so surprised that he said aloud, “Whatever are you two doing?”
“Hush,” said the elephant, “don’t disturb us, we’re playing at being bookends.”
86
The Horse Who Played Cricket
Heard by Katharine M. Briggs in York from a Londoner of Welsh extraction, Piers Nash-Williams, on August 8, 1963.
This is Brunvand’s B350.1, “Horse Plays Cricket, It Can’t Bowl,” placed in the category “Clever Animals With One Flaw.” Brunvand cites Eric Partridge, The “Shaggy Dog” Story, pp. 70–74; John Waller, Shaggy Dog and other Surrealist Fables (London, 1953), pp. 40–41; and the CBS Radio files in New York City accumulated from a shaggy dog contest held in March and April, 1958.
THERE WAS ONCE a visiting cricket team—a town team—that went out to play against a country team. And just at the last moment as they got on to the ’bus, they got a message from one of the team that he had broken his leg and couldn’t come. They hadn’t a spare man, and they hadn’t time to look for one, so the only thing was to hope that there might be some spare players in the home team, and they could borrow one. When they got to the place, the captain of the visiting team explained how it was, and asked the captain of the home team if he could borrow any member of the club for the game. “I’m awfully sorry,” said the home captain, “we’re such a small club that all our members are playing. I don’t know what we can do. Oh! I know, go and ask that old horse over there if he’ll stand in for you. He’s drawn the mower and the roller for years, and there isn’t anything he doesn’t know about cricket. He’s a good-natured old chap; go over and ask him nicely, and I’m sure he’ll consent.”
So the captain of the visiting team walked over to the horse, and he said, “Excuse me, sir, the captain thinks you might be willing to oblige us. One of the team’s failed at the last moment, and the captain thought you might be willing to play for us. We don’t like to go home without a game at all.”
“Well, I’m terribly out of practice,” said the horse, “but I don’t like to be disobliging. I’ll tell you what; put me down to bat last, and then I can’t do much harm.”
So that was arranged. The home team won the toss, and they put the visiting team in to bat first. They may have been a small club, but every man of them was a cricketer, as the visiting team soon discovered. They had a couple of demon bowlers who knocked the wickets down like ninepins, and soon there were nine wickets down, with about twice as many runs. It was the old horse’s turn to go in, and soon the visiting team’s spirits began to rise, for he knocked those bowlers all over the field. The score went to twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and it looked as if the old horse would stay there till he’d made his century, only unfortunately the tenth man got caught out, and that was the end of the innings. After this, the home team went in, and they soon showed they were as good at batting as they were at bowling, and the visiting captain put on every bowler they had, and they were all treated with contempt. At last, he went over to the old horse, who was fielding long-stop.
“You’ve done so well for us in the batting, sir,” he said, “I wonder if you would try what you can do with the bowling?”
