THE FOOL.[1]
A peasant and his wife had a half-witted son, who pictured himself married an sleeping with his wife. He spoke of this matter to his father.
"Marry me, little father," he said.
Said the little father:
"Wait, my son. You are still too young marry. Thy yard hath not yet reached to thy backside. When it doth reach there, I will marry thee."
The son seized his yard with his two hands, stretched it with all his strength, and inspected it.
"'Tis true," quoth he. "It hath not yet reached to my backside. 'Tis still too soon for me to marry. My yard is yet small. It reacheth not to my backside. I must wait a year or two."
Time passed. The youth had naught to do but lengthen his yard; and he did it so often and so well that not only did his yard reach to his backside, but even passed beyond it.
"I shall have no shame in sleeping with my wife," said he. "I will satisfy her myself. She will have no need to resort to strangers."
"Vain to expect sense on the part of a fool," argued the father to himself; and he spake his son, saying:
"Since thy yard is become so great that it passeth beyond thy backside, there is no need for thee to marry. Live single, rest at home, and futter thyself."
Thus the matter ended.[2]
- ↑ Kruptadia: Heibronn, Henninger Frères, 1883: vol. 1, Secret Stories from the Russian, No. 12.
- ↑ Stories of sexual ignorance, amounting in the case of men to veritable imbecility, are numerous in Kruptadia. In Vol. X., Stories of Picardy, we have the tale of a young girl who had been seduced, but had married a half-witted youth, whom she was forced to instruct in the art of love. When they were in bed together, "she showed him how children are made—a business entirely unknown to him. After the explanations had been given in theory, the husband mounted upon his wife, desiring to show that he had learned his lesson well; but the young wife cried out in surprise: "Tis too high! 'Tis too high!' An instant later she was forced to say: "Tis too low! 'Tis too low!' Several other of his efforts having failed, she told her husband that he did but knock at the side of the door. Whereat the latter, aweary of 'Too high' and 'Too low,' exclaimed: 'Since thou knowest the spot so well, put it there thyself!'"