TOPS OR BUTTS?

Here was once a farmer called Jack o’Kent who had a small piece of land near Kentchurch in Herefordshire; he grew enough to support himself and his family, though he did but poorly at the best of times.

One morning when he was ploughing his field he had just reached the end of the furrow and was turning the horse round when he looked up and saw a Boggard, standing with his arms folded and feet planted far apart and scowling down at him.

“This is my land,” he growled. “What are you doing on it?”

The farmer was secretly very frightened, but he answered quietly,

“You haven’t been here for so long, I was ploughing it up for you, ready for this year’s crops.”

“It’s mine,” answered the Boggard, scratching his shaggy chest, “but you can work it for me.”

“That will suit me,” said the farmer, gaining confidence. “Suppose we share it. I do the work and you give me half the crop for my wages.”

The Boggard laid a dark, horny hand on the plough and said,

“How are you going to share the crop?”

Jack the farmer thought a moment.

“This year,” he replied, “you take everything above ground and I take the roots – you have the Tops and I the Butts.”

This seemed to satisfy the Boggard who agreed to come in the autumn to collect his share of the crop. The farmer watched him lumber away over the ploughed field, look for the stile which couldn’t find, and blunder through a gap in the hedge.

The crop that year was turnips. When the Boggard came to claim his half of the crop he got the leaves and the weeds while Jack the farmer carted off all the fine round roots and stored them in his barn.

The Boggard was angry and puzzled, but could not deny that the agreement had been kept. He rootled about among the heap of turnip leaves and cadlock hoping to find something of value, but in vain. At last he said,

“Next year we’ll have it the other way round. You’ll have Tops and I’ll keep Butts.”

The farmer readily agreed. This time he ploughed and harrowed the ground most carefully and sowed a fine crop of wheat.

The Boggard arrived just as the harvest wagon was taking the last golden load across the field. All the harvesters – men, women, boys and girls – were singing as the big shire mare lifted her fairy feet, solemnly and carefully dragging the precious sheaves towards the farmyard.

Only gradually did the Boggard realize he had been tricked. The stubble and the corn-roots were even less use than the turnip leaves. It was not worth his while to plough them on.

But everyone was very kind to him at the Harvest Home and he drank a great deal, scoffed some hot bag-puddings, and even tried to dance a sort of a jig, but fell down before he had reached the capers. Then he sat quietly in a corner watching the merry-makers until at last the party was over and all the harvesters had gone home.

“See here, Jack,” he said to the farmer, ‘I think you’ve got some pins about you, lad. Next time we’ll share the crop above ground.”

He laid his great paw on the farmer’s shoulder and looked down earnestly into his face.

“We’ll start reaping together and each shall have whatever he reaps.”

Jack o’Kent accepted this arrangement and the Boggard stumbled off.

The next year wheat was grown and a fine upstanding field it was, rippling like a golden sea in the breeze.

But the farmer had been to the blacksmith and got him to make some iron rods about three feet long and as thick as a clay pipe shank. These rods he stuck into the ground at irregular intervals in the Boggard’s half of the wheat field.

The time for the reaping match arrived. Each reaper sharpened his scythe well beforehand and when the church clock struck five they both began to reap. The farmer got on well; his scythe went swishing through the straw, and the corn fell down with a rustle at every stroke.

But the Boggard did not get on so fast. He had not reaped a dozen yards before the blade of his scythe was hacked in several places.

“Hey, I must stop and wiffle-waffle,” he cried, by which he meant he must whet his scythe with his hone.

The farmer laughed and went on reaping – he had already covered twice as much ground as his rival.

“This corn must be full of real tough burdocks with old stalks like sticks of iron,” complained the Boggard, looking ruefully at the jagged edge of his scythe.

The farmer was away down the field almost out of earshot by now. The sun was getting higher and the dew on the corn had dried. But the Boggard could make no progress at all, for his battered scythe would not reap even when he had a clear patch of corn. He flung it down on the stubble.

“You can take your mucky old land, and keep it!” he said in despair. “I won’t have any more to do with it. I’m as sick as a toad of it, and of you an’ all.”

And off he went and never came back and the farmer never saw him again. But he kept the Boggard’s jagged scythe and hung it in his barn.

And now his grandson shows it proudly to his friends to testify to the truth of the story, and he warns young fanners not to be frightened by bullies, for a wise man will get the better of them.

Questions on comprehension and for discussion:

1. What makes Jack o’Kent a typical folktale hero?

2. Do you recognize the plot of this tale? Are there any differences in comparison with the Russian folktale?

3. What kind of words and phrases are repeated through the tale? What is the artistic effect of these repetitions?

Дата добавления: 2015-10-24