• The Creature
• "I Should Laugh Now, If I Were Not Dead"

The Creature

Once there was a farmer in the eastern part of the country who went on horseback one morning to fetch his cows; they had been left out in the open overnight. When he found them, he saw that a grey carrier* was hanging at the udder of his best cow and was sucking her dry.

When the farmer came near, the carrier darted away, but the farmer chased it on horseback. The carrier ran straight past some mounds and jumped over others until it got to a farm where were some people out in the field. The carrier dashed under the skirts of the farmer's wife among them. The man who was chasing the carrier jumped off his horse and tied up the woman's skirts to just below the place where the carrier was.

Then the woman was burned.

~ೞ⬯ೞ~

"I should laugh now if I weren't dead!"

Once two married women had a dispute about which of their husbands was the biggest fool. At last they agreed to try if their husbands were as foolish as they seemed to be.

One of the women then played this trick. When her husband came home from his work, she took a spinning-wheel and carders, and sitting down, began to card and spin. However, neither the farmer nor anyone else saw any wool in her hands. Her husband, observing this, asked if she was mad to scrape the teazles together and spin the wheel without having the wool, and asked her to tell what this meant.

She said it was scarcely to be expected that he should see what she was doing, for it was a kind of linen too fine to be seen with the eye. She was going to make him clothes of this.

He thought it a very good explanation, and wondered much at how clever his good wife was, and was not a little glad in looking forward to the joy and pride he would feel in having on these marvellous clothes.

When his wife had spun enough for the clothes, as she said, she set up the loom, and wove the stuff. Her husband used to visit her now and then, wondering at the skill of his good lady. She was much amused at all this, and made haste to carry out the trick well. She took the cloth from the loom when it was finished - first washed and fulled it, and last sat down to work, cutting it and sewing the clothes out of it.

When she had finished all this, she bade her husband come and try the clothes on, but did not dare let him put them on alone, and therefore she would help him, she said. She made believe to dress him in his fine clothes, and although the poor man was in reality naked, yet he firmly believed that thinking so was all his own mistake: he thought his clever wife had made him these wondrous-fine clothes. He was so glad at this that he could not help jumping about for joy.

When the husband of the other wife came home from his work, she asked him why in the world he was up and going about on his feet. The man was startled at this question and said:

"Why do you ask this?"

She persuaded him that he was very ill and told him he had better go to bed. He believed what his wife said, and went to bed as soon as he could.

When some time had passed, the wife said she would do the last services for him. He asked why, and prayed her by all means not to do so.

She said:

"Why do you behave like a fool? Don't you know that you died this morning? I am going to have your coffin made at once."

Now the poor man, believing this to be true, rested thus till he was put into his coffin. His wife then appointed a day for the burial, hired six coffin-carriers, and asked the other couple to follow her dear husband to his grave. Then she had a window made in one side of the coffin, so that her husband might see all that passed round him.

When the hour came for removing the coffin, the naked man came there, thinking that everybody would admire his delicate clothes. But far from it; although the coffin-bearers were in a sad mood, nobody could help laughing when they saw him strutting about naked. And when the man in the coffin caught a glance of him, he cried out as loud as he could:

"I should laugh now if I weren't dead!"

The burial was put off, and the man let out of the coffin.

(From Carter 1990, 102-3)