SECTION IX
HIDDEN TREASURES
In Esthonia, as elsewhere, we meet with many stories of hidden treasures, frequently in connection with devils, and hence we place this section next to the Devil-stories. The stories of "The Courageous Barn-keeper" and of the "Gallows Dwarfs" are curious and interesting; those which follow are given here only in abstract. In all countries which have been devastated by war, traditions of hidden treasure are common. I remember once reading a story in a newspaper (but I do not know if the report was true) of a quantity of coins of Edward the Confessor and Harold being dug up in a field respecting which there was a tradition in the neighbourhood that a great treasure was concealed in it. In Esthonian as well as in Oriental tales, hidden treasures are usually under the care of non-human guardians, even when it is not said that they were specially placed under their protection. This notion probably persists in many countries to the present day. It is said that when Kidd, the famous pirate, buried a hoard of treasure, he used to slaughter a negro at the place, that the ghost might guard it. Stories of his hidden treasure (more or less probable) are still rife in America.
THE COURAGEOUS BARN-KEEPER.
(Kreutzwald.)
Once upon a time there lived a barn-keeper who had few to equal him in courage. The Old Boy himself admitted that a bolder man had never yet appeared on earth. In the evening, when the threshers were no longer at work in the barn, he often paid a visit to the barn-keeper, and never tired of talking with him. He was under the impression that the barn-keeper did not recognise him, and supposed him to be only an ordinary peasant; but his host knew him well enough, though he pretended not, and had made up his mind to box Old Hornie's ears if he could. One evening the Old Boy began to complain of the hard life of a bachelor, and how he had nobody to knit him a pair of stockings or to hem a handkerchief. The barn-keeper answered, "Why don't you go a-wooing, my brother?" The Old Boy returned, "I've tried my luck often enough, but the girls won't have me. The younger and prettier they are, the more they laugh at me."
The barn-keeper advised him to court old maids or widows, who would be much easier to win, and who would not be so likely to despise a suitor. The Old Boy took his advice, and some weeks afterwards married an old maid; but it was not long before he came back to the barn-keeper to complain of his troubles. His newly-married wife was full of tricks; she left him no rest night or day, and tormented him continually. "What sort of a man are you," laughed the barn-keeper, "to allow your wife to wear the trousers? If you marry a wife, you must take care to be master." The Old Boy answered, "I couldn't manage her. If she chose to bring anybody else into the house, I couldn't venture to set foot in it." The barn-keeper sought to comfort him, and advised him to try his luck elsewhere; but the Old Boy thought that the first trial was enough, and had no inclination to put his neck under a woman's yoke again.