North Riding Version of the Boy and his Wages.
A boy once had a very cruel step-mother; so cruel was she, that the lad determined to run away. In the end he did so, and hired himself to a farmer. Now when a year had passed, the kind farmer gave the lad for his wages an ass which dropped gold. Off home went the boy, driving his ass in front of him. On coming to a wayside inn, the landlord asked him why he did not ride such a fine-looking ass. The lad in reply foolishly told Boniface that his ass was much too valuable a one to ride; adding, ‘Would you ride an ass that dropped gold?’ To this the man asked him to make it drop gold where it stood. The boy wisely explained that it was only when nature’s call had to be obeyed that it did so, and quite beyond his power to command it. Whilst the boy was having refreshment, the ass was put in the stable, the landlord keeping his eye on it; before the lad had eaten and rested, evidence was given that he had spoken nothing but the truth. It happened the landlord had a very fine ass of his own; this he fetched from the field, and whilst the lad slept he groomed it, trimmed its ears and tail, and blacked its hoofs, till in the end it exactly resembled the gold-dropping one. This he took away and hid, putting his own ass in its place. The boy never noticed it was a changeling which he was driving home. On his arrival he told his step-mother what a treasure he had brought her. Hearing such good news, she received him kindly, giving him a supper of fried eggs and bacon. For three days he was, as she told him, treated like a prince; but the third morning, instead of his breakfast, she gave him a worse thrashing than ever, and turned him to the door, calling him all the names she could lay her tongue to. He returned to his master, who kindly received him, and on the completion of his second year’s labour, gave him for his wages a hamper, which every day, on the command being given to fill itself, would be found packed with choicest food, sufficient to feed a large household. Again he stopped at the inn on his way home; calling for a glass of beer, he ordered the hamper to fill. On beholding such a wonderful hamper, the landlord determined to steal that also, so whilst the lad slept, he took it away, replacing it with one of his own exactly similar. To the lad’s discomfiture, the fraud was discovered the moment he returned home. Once again he was severely beaten and turned adrift. Again his kind master took him in, and at the end of his third year gave him a bag containing a thick stick, which on the command being given, ‘Come out, stick, and bend yourself,’ would immediately leap out and unmercifully thrash the individual who at the time was holding the bag. On his way home, the landlord spied him approaching, and with smiles and kind words asked him in. ‘And, pray, what does your bag contain?’ asked he, as soon as the lad was seated. ‘The most wonderful thing you ever saw,’ said he; ‘but let me have a good dinner, and then I will show you.’ The landlord, thinking to have another good haul, served him with the best of everything, going even so far as to give him a glass of wine. All impatience, he waited until the repast was finished. ‘Now,’ said the youth, smacking his lips, as he swallowed the last bite, ‘stand in the middle of the room and hold the bag in your hand, and I’ll promise you the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. That bag is just wonderful.’ Before the lad had finished speaking, the landlord had taken his place in the middle of the floor, holding the bag in his hand. ‘Now open it,’ said the boy—which Boniface did. ‘Why,’ said he, in a tone of great disappointment, ‘it is only a stick.’ ‘Yes,’ replied the boy, ‘but it is a wonderful stick. Now just watch what it can do;’ and then he shouted, ‘Come out, stick, and bend yourself.’ Immediately the stick jumped out of the bag, and bent itself about the back of the landlord until he howled with pain. Do what he would, go where he might, the stick leapt after and beat him, till at last, almost dead, he cried out, ‘Put it in the bag again; I will return thee thy ass and hamper,’ which he did. On nearing home, the lad saw his cruel step-mother waiting for him with a thick stick in her hand. ‘Wait a while,’ he called, ‘until you see what I have brought you in my bag.’ Thinking it would be wiser to wait, she laid down her stick, and let him enter. ‘Now, before I show to you what I have in my bag, give me a good tea; you can thrash me afterwards quite as well as now,’ said he. After his tea, he asked the cruel old dame to take hold of the bag and open it. This she readily did, little dreaming of what was to follow. Again he shouted, ‘Come out, stick, and bend yourself’; and for once the old hag knew what a stick laid across the back meant. She begged, she implored, she promised she would be good and kind to him, if he would only call off the stick. At last, when he considered she had been sufficiently punished, he ordered the stick back into the bag. And from that day she behaved herself in a decent manner.
As has been said, there are many forms of this story. This one differs slightly from that told in the West Riding, and considerably from that of other countries, but one and all contain the same mythological essentials.
The kind master is the all-ruling God. The ass is typical of spring, yielding that which gives all good things. And the hamper undoubtedly represents the earth, which is full of all things necessary for our happiness and existence. But there comes a time when the gods, displeased with our ungratefulness or other sins, permit evil spirits to either steal or withhold the good blessings from us; then follows a chastising of the evil spirits, who are driven away, and the earth becomes once again plentiful.
The gold-dropping ass, and in some collateral form the hamper, bag, and stick, are old friends in Eastern tales, which were told when the world was very young. Possibly their radicals, if ever discovered, will be found in some early religious creed.
Perhaps some student will work out the meaning and application of the following; it is beyond me. An old servant of ours was taught it by her grandmother:—
There was a man who lived in Leeds,
He set his garden full of seeds,
And when the seeds began to grow,
It was like a garden full of snow;