Lettish Wit and Humor
IN a certain forest region dogheads and men lived side by side. The former were hunters, the latter tillers of the soil. Once the dogheads caught a young girl who had come from a far country, and had lost her way in the wood. They took her to their home, and for a long time fed her with the kernels of nuts and with sweet milk. Now and then they stuck needles into the girl’s arm to see if she was fat enough. The blood which flowed from her arm they licked up as greedily as a bear licks honey. At last they thought the girl was in proper condition to be eaten, so they told their mother to kill and cook her, and they themselves went out hunting. In the oven a great fire had been blazing for three days. But since there was no shovel with which the old creature could put the young girl into the oven, she sent her to the nearest human dwelling to borrow one. The girl, who had no suspicion of her fate, did as she was told. But the woman who lent her the shovel saw through the whole plan, and gave her some good advice.
When the mother of the dogheads told the girl to lie down on the shovel, the latter behaved as awkwardly as possible. She tried again and again, but could not get into the oven. Then the old creature waxed wroth and began to curse. But the girl said, “Why are you angry? Show me how it is to be done, and I will follow your example.”
The advice appealed to the old monster. She lay down 266 flat on the shovel and cried, “Now you see!” But in the twinkling of an eye the girl shoved her into the red-hot stove, and slammed the door. Then she turned her sandals round so that the toe came under the heel, and fled.
When the dogheads came home they went at once for their roast and began to devour it. But somehow they did not relish it as much as they had anticipated, so that they began to look closely at the remnants, and found among them a jewel which their mother had been wont to wear. Now they realized something of what had happened, and, cursing, they set out to search for the girl. She had reached a broad river, which she found it impossible to cross. When she heard the barking and howling of the approaching dogheads, she climbed a tree, and hid herself in the foliage. The dogheads stood by the river bank, undetermined what to do. Suddenly they saw the reflection of her whom they sought in the water. A breeze had blown the leaves apart, so that the girl’s face looked out, and was mirrored in the river. In their blind rage her pursuers now began to lick up the water. They licked and licked until they burst. And so the girl was safe from them forever.
THERE was once a peasant who had a beautiful but stupid wife called Liz. One day, when he was away from home, a stranger came by and asked for something to eat. The woman gave him some cabbage soup, and complained that the cabbage was not very good. She meant the cabbage-plants, 267 and the stranger thought she meant the soup. So he said, “You must put plenty of bacon in it.” When he was gone, the woman ran to the storeroom, got a great side of bacon, cut it into little pieces, and placed these on the cabbages in her vegetable garden. The neighbor’s watch-dog smelling the bacon, he jumped over the fence, and began to devour the savory morsels. Then the woman grew angry, tied the dog to the plug of a beer-barrel, and beat him. Of course, the dog tugged and tugged, till the plug came out, and then he ran away with rope and plug.
What was to be done? The foolish woman ran after the dog, and at last wrested the plug from him. When she returned the beer had all run out of the barrel, and the floor was drenched. Then she remembered that there was a bushel of fine wheat flour in her cupboard. She took this out and strewed the ground with it in order to dry it. And so, when her husband came home, bacon and beer and flour were all gone.
But once his wife’s stupidity helped the peasant out of a tight place. It happened that he found a treasure on a field belonging to the lord of the land. Although he commanded his wife to be discreet, she talked about it, and it came to the ears of the lord of the land, who summoned the peasant before him, and required the treasure to be given up. The peasant said that he knew nothing of any treasure, but the lord of the land cried, “Do not lie, for your wife spread the news! Come to-morrow, and bring her with you.”
Sadly the peasant went home, trying to think how he could best get out of the situation. At home he said to his wife, “A great war is coming over the land. To-day the enemy will be upon us, and so we had better hide. I’ll conceal myself in the woods, but do you creep into the big 268 hole in the earth behind our house. As soon as the enemy is gone I’ll come for you.”
The woman climbed down; the peasant covered the opening with a cowhide, on which he strewed plentiful oats, so that ducks and geese and chickens flocked thither from all sides. They scraped and ran on the cowhide, and screamed “Ga! Ga!”
“Oh, what a frightful war they are having up there!” thought the woman. “How good that I am hidden!”
Late in the evening the peasant came, and poured warm water on the cowhide, which sickered through some holes in it. When the woman felt this she said, “Thank Heaven that it rains; the drought has lasted long.”
Next morning the peasant got his wife out of the hole. “The war is over,” he said. “Let us go to the manor-house; I have some business there.”
They had not gone far, when they heard the pitiful bleating of a sheep from a barn.
“Dear husband,” said the woman, “what is it that groans so pitifully?”
“Let us pass quickly,” said the peasant; “the devils are beating the lord of the land.”
At last they came to the manor-house, and were taken before the lord of the land. He asked the woman, “Did your husband find a treasure?”
“To be sure.”
“When?”
“Before the great Ga-Ga war broke out.”
The lord of the land laughed, “When did that war happen?”
“At the time of the warm rain,” answered the woman.
“But it has not rained for six weeks.”
269“Perhaps your lordship did not hear the rain, because the devils wee beating you just then.”
Then the lord of the land grew angry, drove man and wife forth, and so the peasant got to keep his treasure.