Segnius Irritant: or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories/George and His Goat
George and His Goat.
[Bohemian: in the Domaslik dialect. The dialect of this story differs from pure Czech chiefly in placing a v before on (he), and also before words compounded of od and o, “from” and “about.” There is further a misuse of the aspirate: ale, aby, kde and kdy becoming hale, haly, hde, hdy.]
There was a king and he had a daughter, and no one could make her laugh; she was always gloomy. So this king said he would give her to him who made her laugh. So there was a shepherd, and he had a son, and they called him George. He said: “Little father! I will also go and see if I can make her laugh. I do not ask anything of you except this nanny-goat.” And his father said: Well, go then.” This goat was of such a kind that when she wished, she held every one fast, and the man must remain stuck to her.
So he took this nanny-goat and went, and he met a certain one, he had his foot on his shoulder. George said: “Why, prythee, hast thou thy foot on thy shoulder?” And he: “I, when I lift it off, so I make a skip of a hundred miles.” “And where goest thou?” “I go into service if any one will take me.” “Soh! come with me.”
They went on, and again met a certain one, he had a small plank across his eyes. “Thou, prythee, why hast thou that plank across thy eyes?” And he: “I, if I raise that plank, so I see an hundred miles.” “And where goest thou?” I go into service if thou wouldst take me.” “Very well, I will take thee. Come thou, too, with me.”
They went a piece of the way and met a third comrade; he held a bottle under his arm, and held his thumb in it instead of a cork. “Why dost thou hold thy thumb so—eh?” “When I uncork it I send a jet a hundred miles, and souse everything I please. If thou wilt take me too, into thy service, that can be our fortune and thine likewise.” And George replied: “Well, then, come.”
After that they went into that city where that king was, and piled up ribbands on their goat. And they came to an ale-house, and the man there had been told beforehand, when such and such people came that he was to give them what they wanted to eat and drink, and that the king would pay him everything. So they led this goat out, all over ribbands, and put it into the bar under charge of the barman, and he put it into the alecove where his daughters lay. Now this ale-house fellow had three daughters, and they were not yet asleep. Then that Manka (Maggie) said: “Oh! if I could have some ribbands like those, too! I will go and take some off that goat.” The second, Doodle (Dolly), says: “Don’t go, he will find out next morning.” But she went all the same. And when a long time passed and Manka came not, the third one, that Kate, said: I will go there for her.” So that Doodle went and slapped Manka on the back: “Do come and leave it!” And there she was, and couldn’t tear herself away from it. So that Kate says: “Do come away; don’t untie them all.” She went and shook Doodle by the petticoat, and now she too couldn’t get away, but had to remain fast to her.
So in the morning that George got up early and went for that nanny-goat and led them all out: Kate, Doodle, and Manka. The barman was still asleep. They went through the village, and there was the mayor peeping out of the window. “Oh! fie, Katey, what’s this? what’s this?” He went and seized her by the hand and tried to pull her away, and he also remained stuck fast to her. After this a herdsman drove cows by the lane, and the bull in passing rubbed against them, got fixed, and George led him along with the rest.
So after this they came before the castle, and there came out the servants, and when they saw such a thing they went and said to that king: “Oh! sir, there’s such a strange sight to see; we’ve already had all sorts of masquers here, but never anything like this.” So that king at once brought out his daughter into the square, and she was taken by surprise and laughed until the castle shook again.
So now they asked who it was. He replies: “That it is the shepherd’s son, and that they call him George.” And they: “That it cannot be; that he is of vulgar birth, that they cannot give him that daughter, but that he must do them something else.” He says: “What?” And they: Look, yonder is a well, a hundred miles off; if within a minute he shall bring that jar full of water, then he shall get the girl.” So he, that George, says to him who has his foot on his shoulder: “Thou saidst, if thou wert to take that foot off thy shoulder that thou wouldst skip a hundred miles.” And he: “Oh! as to that, I can easily do it.” Put his foot down, gave a skip, and was there. But after this it already wanted a very little of the time for him to have returned. So George said to that second fellow: “Thou saidst, if thou wert to lift that small plank off thy eyes, that thou wouldst see a hundred miles; look and see what he is doing there.” Oh! master, he’s lying down there. Oh! Jemini! why he’s gone to sleep there.” “That will be the deuce,” says George, “time will be up directly. Thou, number three, thou saidst that when thou didst uncork that thumb of thine, thou couldst throw a jet a hundred miles; quick, throw a jet there, that he may get up. And thou, take a glance and see if he’s yet stirring there or not?” “Oh! master, now he’s getting up, now he’s wiping himself —now he’s drawing water.” After this he gave a skip, and was already back again, and just in time.
So after this they said that he must show them yet another trick; that in yonder rocks there was such and such a wild beast, a unicorn, and that it destroyed many of their people; if he would clear it out of the wood, that then he should get the girl. So he took his men, and into that wood they went. So they came to such and such a pine tree. So there were the three wild beasts, and as many lairs rubbed bare by their lying in them. Two of these animals did nothing, but that third one devoured people. So they collected stones and those pine cones in their lap and crept up into the tree; and when those three beasts laid themselves down, they let drop a stone on to that one of the animals that was an unicorn. And he, that beast, cried to the second one: “Do be quiet, don’t push me!” And the other says: “I am doing nothing to thee.” And again they let drop a stone from above on to that unicorn. “Do be quiet! now thou hast done it to me a third time.” “When I have done nothing to thee!” So they seized one another and fought together. And that unicorn tried to run the other beast through; but he skipped aside, and as the unicorn rushed savagely at him, it drove its horn into the tree and could not at once draw it out again. So the men jumped down at once from the pine tree, and those two animals took to flight, and they cut off the head of the third one—that unicorn, put the head on their shoulders, and carried it to the castle.
Then those in the castle saw that George had again accomplished his task. “What, prythee, shall we do? Perhaps we must give him that girl after all?” “No, master!” said that one of the servants, “it cannot be, when he is of vulgar birth, to think of his getting a king’s daughter such as yours. But we must clear him out of the world.” So he, that king, said he should keep the word that he had spoken. So there was there a female lodger, she said to him: “Oh! George, to-day it will go ill with thee, they want to clear thee out of the world.” So he says: “Oh! I’m not frightened; once, when I was only twelve years old, I killed twelve of them at a blow.” But it was thus when his mamma baked him ember cakes, twelve flies setttled on them, and he killed them at a single blow.
So they, when they heard it, said: “There is nothing for it but to shoot him.” So, after this, they prepared the soldiers, and told them they must make a parade in his honour, for he was going to be married in the square. So they led him out there, and the soldiers were just going to let fly at him. And he, that George, said to the man who used his thumb instead of a cork: “Thou saidst, if thou wert to uncork that thumb of thine, that thou couldst souse everything; quick, uncork!” So he uncorked his thumb and soused them all until they were all blind, and no one saw at all.
So at last, when they saw there was nothing for it, they told him to come and they would give him that girl. So after this they gave him fine royal robes, and there was a wedding. And I, too, was at that wedding; they had music there, sang, ate and drank; there were baskets full of meat, pound-cake, and everything, and casks full of vodka. I went to-day and got there yesterday; I found an egg among the tree roots, broke it on somebody’s head, and made him bald, and bald he has been ever since.
NOTE.
This story occurs in Venetian Slav folk-lore as the Basket of Flowers. We have already shewn reason to believe that the Venetian folk-lore stories have travelled from East-Central Europe south, and not from Venice north. The story in its Venetian dress confirms this hypothesis. We shall see later on that George’s Goat is Capricornus. With its transformation into a basket, and the disappearance of the three mates corresponding to Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes, as well as the bull and the mayor, the story almost entirely loses its character of an annual myth. Like the transformation of the pike in the Polish story into an eel in the Venetian one, and of the horse punishment of Slav stories into the punishment of being burnt on a tar barrel in the Venetian ones, the transformation of Capricornus into a basket of flowers is just what we might expect if the story was transplanted from rigorous Central Europe to the lagoons of Venice, and its character of an annual myth became thus obliterated. The loss of the three mates and the transformation of the mayor and the bull into other characters is particularly significant, for, as will be shewn further on (see supplementary essay), Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes are the three signs of the Zodiac, Sagittarius, Aquarius, and Pisces, and the mayor and the bull in all probability the sun and Taurus. In the Venetian variant, instead of George we have an old man, instead of the mayor a bell-ringer with a bunch of grapes, instead of the bull a baker’s boy, a wayfarer and a flock of geese. But the transformation of the goat into a basket is the most instructive of all, for it tells us a lot of things, and shows in actual operation the mechanism, partly linguistic, partly local, partly racial, by which the characters of myths and fairy-stories change their form with Protean facility. If there is one characteristic more marked than another in the Venetian dialect, and therefore in the speech organs of the race that speaks it at present, it is the softening of the harsh s into the soft z. Now there are two words in Czech—koza, a she-goat, and kosh, a basket. The former word, it might be remarked in parenthesis, gives us the famous Slav Cossacks, properly goat-herds. Supposing a people in Venice and the neighbouring lagoons who spoke, or at all events understood Slavonic, and the absence of that mountain animal, the goat, among swamps and rushes, the two words koza and kosh, being both pronounced with the terminal consonant as soft z, would easily be confused and interchanged; and the basket, being more appropriate to that rushy region than the goat, would soon take its place. We may thus infer, with some probability, that the story was transplanted to Venice, or at all events to the adjacent fens, at a period when the people inhabiting Venice or those fens still spoke Slavonic. That such a period existed in the perhaps not very distant past is also rendered highly probable from the fact that all the principal place-names of the region, and indeed those of a great part of the province of Venetia, can be perfectly accounted for as Latinized Slav words.