by Jane Yolen
“What’s the matter?” Coyote cried. “Why have you caught my hand? Turn loose or you’ll get my other fist. If I hit a man with that one, it knocks all his wits out!” Then Coyote punched with his other fist, and this arm got stuck in the pitch also. Now he was standing on his two hind legs.
“I’m going to kick you if you keep holding me, and it’ll knock you over.” Coyote delivered a powerful kick, and his leg went into the pitch and stuck. “This other leg is worse still, and you’re going to get it!” he said. He kicked, and his leg stuck into the pitch.
Now Coyote’s legs were fast in the pitch; only his tail was free. “If I whip you with my tail, it will cut you in two. So turn me loose!” But the pitch man just stood there. Coyote lashed the pitch with his tail and got it stuck also. Only his head was free, and he was still talking with it. “Why do you hold me this way? I’ll bite you in the neck and kill you, so you’d better turn me loose.” When the pitch did nothing, Coyote bit it and got his mouth stuck, and there he was.
In the morning, the farmer put a chain around Coyote’s neck, took him out of the pitch, and led him to the house. “This is the one who has been stealing from me,” he said to his family. The white people held a meeting to discuss what they should do with Coyote. They decided to put him into a pot of boiling water and scald him, so they set the water on to heat and tied Coyote up at the side of the house.
Pretty soon Coyote saw Gray Fox coming along, loafing around the farmer’s yard, looking for something to steal from the white man. Coyote called him over. “My cousin,” he said, “there are lots of things cooking for me in that pot,” though of course the pot was only heating water to scald him in. “There are potatoes, coffee, bread, and all kinds of food for me. It’ll soon be done, and the white people are going to bring them to me. You and I can eat them together, but you must help me first. Can you put this chain around your neck while I go and urinate behind that bush?” Fox agreed and, taking the chain off Coyote, put it on his own neck. As soon as Coyote was out of sight behind the bush, he ran off.
After a while the water was good and hot, and the white men came out to Gray Fox. “He seems so little! What happened? He must have shrunk, I guess,” they said. They lifted him up and threw him into the pot. Now the hot water boiled his hair right off, leaving Gray Fox bright red and hairless. They took off the chain and threw him under a tree, where he lay motionless until evening. When it got dark and cold, he woke up and started off.
After a while Gray Fox came to Bear’s camp and asked, “Where is Coyote?” Bear replied that Coyote always went for his water to some spring above Bear’s camp at midnight. So Gray Fox ran off to the springs and hid himself.
Now at midnight Coyote came as usual to the spring, but when he put his head to the water to drink, Gray Fox jumped him. “Now I’m going to kill you and eat you,” the fox said. The moon was shining from the sky down into the water, and Coyote, pointing to its reflection, replied, “Don’t talk like that, when we can both eat this delicious ‘ash bread’ down there. All we have to do is drink all the water, and we can take the bread out and have a feast.”
They both started to lap up the water, but soon Coyote was merely pretending to drink. Gray Fox drank lots, and when he was full, he got cold. Then Coyote said, ’My cousin, some white people left a camp over here, and I’m going to look for some old rags or quilts to wrap you up in. Wait for me.” So Coyote started off, and as soon as he was out of sight, he ran away.
CRACK AND CROOK
Italy
In a distant town there was a famous thief known as Crack, whom nobody had ever been able to catch. The main ambition of this Crack was to meet Crook, another notorious thief, and form a partnership with him. One day as Crack was eating lunch at the tavern across the table from a stranger, he went to look at his watch and found it missing. The only person in the world who could have taken it without my knowing, he thought, is Crook. So what did Crack do but turn right around and steal Crook’s purse. When the stranger got ready to pay for his lunch, he found his purse gone and said to his table companion, “Well, well, you must be Crack.”
“And you must be Crook.”
“Right.”
“Fine, we’ll work together.”
They went to the city and made for the king’s treasury, which was completely surrounded by guards. The thieves therefore dug an underground tunnel into the treasury and stole everything. Surveying his loss, the king had no idea how he might catch the robbers. He went to a man named Snare, who had been put in prison for stealing, and said, “If you can tell me who committed this robbery, I’ll set you free and make you a marquis.”
Snare replied, “It can be none other than Crack or Crook, or both of them together, since they are the most notorious thieves alive. But I’ll tell you how you can catch them. Have the price of meat raised to one hundred dollars a pound. The person who pays that much for it will be your thief.”
The king had the price of meat raised to one hundred dollars a pound, and everybody stopped buying meat. Finally it was reported that a friar had gone to a certain butcher and bought meat. Snare said, “That had to be Crack or Crook in disguise. I’ll now disguise myself and go around to the houses begging. If anybody gives me meat, I’ll make a red mark on the front door, and your guards can go and arrest the thieves.”
But when he made a red mark on Crack’s house, the thief saw it and went and marked all the other doors in the city with red, so there was no telling in the end where Crack and Crook lived.
Snare said to the king, “Didn’t I tell you they were foxy? But there’s someone else foxier than they are. Here’s the next thing to do: put a tub of boiling pitch at the bottom of the treasury steps. Whoever goes down to steal will fall right into it, and his dead body will give him away.”
Crack and Crook had run out of money in the meantime and decided to go back to the treasury for more. Crook went in first, but it was dark, and he fell into the tub. Crack came along and tried to pull his friend’s body out of the pitch, but it stuck fast in the tub. He then cut off the head and carried it away.
The next day the king went to see if he had caught the thief. “This time we got him! We got him!” But the corpse had no head, so they were none the wiser about the thief or any accomplices he might have had.
Snare said, “There’s one more thing we can do: have the dead man dragged through the city by two horses. The house where you hear somebody weeping has to be the thief’s house.”
In effect, when Crook’s wife looked out the window and saw her husband’s body being dragged through the street, she began screaming and crying. But Crack was there and knew right away that would be their undoing. He therefore starting smashing dishes right and left and thrashing the poor woman at the same time. Attracted by all that screaming, the guards came in and found a man beating his wife for breaking up all the dishes in the house.
The king then had a decree posted on every street corner that he would pardon the thief who had robbed him, if the thief now managed to steal the sheets out from under him at night. Crack came forward and said he could do it.
That night the king undressed and went to bed with his gun to wait for the thief. Crack got a dead body from a gravedigger, dressed it in his own clothes, and carried it to the roof of the royal palace. At midnight the cadaver, held by a rope, was dangling before the king’s windows. Thinking it was Crack, the king fired one shot and watched him fall, cord and all. He ran downstairs to see if he was dead. While the king was gone, Crack slipped into his room and stole the sheets. He was therefore pardoned, and so that he wouldn’t have to steal any longer, the king married his daughter to him.
THE MASTER THIEF
Germany
One day an old man and his wife were sitting in front of a miserable house resting a while from their work. Suddenly a splendid carriage with four black horses came driving up, and a richly dressed man descended from it.
The peasant stood up, went to the great man, and as
ked what he wanted, and in what way he could serve him.
The stranger stretched out his hand to the old man, and said, “I want nothing but to enjoy for once a country dish. Cook me some potatoes, in the way you always have them, and then I will sit down at your table and eat them with pleasure.”
The peasant smiled and said, “You are a count or a prince, or perhaps even a duke. Noble gentlemen often have such fancies, but you shall have your wish.”
The wife went into the kitchen, and began to wash and rub the potatoes and to make them into balls, as they are eaten by the country folks. Whilst she was busy with this work, the peasant said to the stranger, “Come into my garden with me for a while. I have still something to do there.” He had dug some holes in the garden, and now wanted to plant trees in them.
“Have you no children,” asked the stranger, “who could help you with your work?”
“No,” answered the peasant. “I had a son, it is true, but it is long since he went out into the world. He was a ne’er-do-well; clever and knowing, but he would learn nothing and was full of bad tricks. At last he ran away from me, and since then I have heard nothing of him.”
The old man took a young tree, put it in a hole, drove in a post beside it, and when he had shoveled in some earth and had trampled it firmly down, he tied the stem of the tree above, below, and in the middle, fast to the post by a rope of straw.
“But tell me,” said the stranger, “why you don’t tie that crooked knotted tree, which is lying in the corner there, bent down almost to the ground, to a post also that it may grow straight, as well as these?”
The old man smiled and said, “Sir, you speak according to your knowledge. It is easy to see that you are not familiar with gardening. That tree there is old and misshapen; no one can make it straight now. Trees must be trained while they are young.”
“That is how it was with your son,” said the stranger. “If you had trained him while he was still young, he would not have run away. Now he too must have grown hard and misshapen.”
“Truly it is a long time since he went away,” replied the old man. “He must have changed.”
“Would you know him again if he were to come to you?” asked the stranger.
“Hardly by his face,” replied the peasant, “but he has a mark about him, a birthmark on his shoulder, that looks like a bean.”
When he had said that the stranger pulled off his coat, bared his shoulder, and showed the peasant the bean.
“Good God!” cried the old man, “you are really my son!” and love for his child stirred in his heart. “But,” he added, “how can you be my son. You have become a great lord and live in wealth and luxury. How have you contrived to to that?”
“Ah, Father,” answered the son, “the young tree was bound to no post and has grown crooked. Now it is too old, it will never be straight again. How come I come by all this? I have become a thief, but do not be alarmed. I am a master thief. For me there are neither locks nor bolts; whatsoever I desire is mine. Do not imagine that I steal like a common thief. I only take some of the superfluity of the rich. Poor people are safe. I would rather give to them than take anything from them. It is the same with anything which I can have without trouble, cunning, and dexterity—I never touch it.”
“Alas, my son,” said the father, “it still does not please me. A thief is still a thief. I tell you it will end badly.” He took him to his mother, and when she heard that he was her son, she wept for joy, but when he told her that he had become a master thief, two streams flowed down over her face. At length she said, “Even if he has become a thief, he is still my son, and my eyes have beheld him once more.”
They sat down to table, and once again he ate with his parents the wretched food which he had not eaten for so long. The father said, “If our lord, the count up there in the castle, learns who you are, and what trade you follow, he will not take you in his arms and cradle you in them as he did when he held you at the font, but will cause you to swing from a halter.”
“Be easy, Father, he will do me no harm, for I understand my trade. I will go to him myself this very day.”
When evening drew near, the master thief seated himself in his carriage, and drove to the castle. The count received him civilly, for he took him for a distinguished man. When, however, the stranger made himself known, the count turned pale and was quite silent for some time. At length he said, “You are my godson, and on that account mercy shall take the place of justice, and I will deal leniently with you. Since you pride yourself on being a master thief, I will put your art to the proof, but if you do not stand the test, you must marry the ropemaker’s daughter, and the croaking of the raven must be your music on the occasion.”
“Lord Count,” answered the master thief, “think of three things, as difficult as you like, and if I do not perform your tasks, do with me what you will.”
The count reflected for some minutes, and then said, “Well, then, in the first place, you shall steal the horse I keep for my own riding, out of the stable; in the next, you shall steal the sheet from beneath the bodies of my wife and myself when we are asleep, without our observing it, and the wedding ring of my wife as well; thirdly and lastly, you shall steal away out of the church the parson and the clerk. Mark what I am saying, for your life depends on it.”
The master thief went to the nearest town; there he bought the clothes of an old peasant woman, and put them on. He stained his face brown, and painted wrinkles on it as well, so that no one could have recognized him. Then he filled a small cask with old Hungary wine in which was mixed a powerful sleeping drink. He put the cask in a basket, which he took on his back, and walked with slow and tottering steps to the count’s castle. It was already dark when he arrived. He sat down on a stone in the courtyard and began to cough, like an asthmatic old woman, and to rub his hands as if he were cold.
In front of the door of the stable some soldiers were lying round a fire. One of them observed the woman, and called out to her, “Come nearer, old mother, and warm yourself beside us. After all, you have no bed for the night, and must take one where you can find it.”
The old woman tottered up to them, begged them to lift the basket from her back, and sat down beside them at the fire.
“What have you got in your little cask, old hag?” asked one.
“A good mouthful of wine,” she answered. “I live by trade. For money and fair words I am quite ready to let you have a glass.”
“Let us have it here, then,” said the soldier, and when he had tasted one glass he said, “When wine is good, I like another glass,” and had another poured out for himself, and the rest followed his example.
“Hallo, comrades,” cried one of them to those who were in the stable, “here is an old girl who has wine that is as old as herself. Take a draught, it will warm your stomachs far better than our fire.”
The old woman carried her cask into the stable. One of the soldiers had seated himself on the saddled riding horse, another held its bridle in his hand, a third had laid hold of its tail. She poured out as much as they wanted until the spring ran dry. It was not long before the bridle fell from the hand of the one, and he fell down and began to snore; the other left hold of the tail, lay down, and snored still louder. The one who was sitting in the saddle did remain sitting, but bent his head almost down to the horse’s neck, and slept and blew with his mouth like the bellows of a forge. The soldiers outside had already been asleep for a long time, and were lying on the ground motionless, as if dead.
When the master thief saw that he had succeeded, he gave the first a rope in his hand instead of the bridle, and the other who had been holding the tail, a wisp of straw, but what was he to do with the one who was sitting on the horse’s back? He did not want to throw him down, for he might have awakened and have uttered a cry. He had a good idea: he unbuckled the girths of the saddle, tied a couple of ropes which were hanging to a ring on the wall fast to the saddle, and drew the sleeping rider up into the air on it,
then he twisted the rope round the posts and made it fast. He soon unloosed the horse from the chain, but if he had ridden over the stony pavement of the yard they would have heard the noise in the castle. So he wrapped the horse’s hoofs in old rags, led him carefully out, leaped upon him, and galloped off.
When day broke, the master thief galloped to the castle on the stolen horse. The count had just got up, and was looking out of the window. “Good morning, Sir Count,” he cried to him, “here is the horse, which I have got safely out of the stable! Just look, how beautifully your soldiers are lying there sleeping; and if you will but go into the stable, you will see how comfortable your watchers have made it for themselves.”
The count could not help laughing. Then he said, “For once you have succeeded, but things won’t go so well the second time, and I warn you that if you come before me as a thief, I will handle you as I would a thief.”
When the countess went to bed that night, she closed her hand with the wedding ring tightly together, and the count said, “All the doors are locked and bolted. I will keep awake and wait for the thief, but if he gets in by the window, I will shoot him.”
The master thief, however, went in the dark to the gallows, cut a poor sinner who was hanging there down from the halter, and carried him on his back to the castle. Then he set a ladder up to the bedroom, put the dead body on his shoulders, and began to climb up. When he had got so high that the head of the dead man showed at the window, the count, who was watching in his bed, fired a pistol at him, and immediately the thief let the poor sinner fall down, descended the ladder, and hid himself in one corner. The night was sufficiently lighted by the moon for the thief to see distinctly how the count got out of the window onto the ladder, came down, carried the dead body into the garden, and began to dig a hole in which to lay it.