72-15,298

SMITH, Richard Emmanuel, 1936- A STUDY OF THE CORRESPONDENCES BETWEEN THE ROMAN DE RENARD, JAMAICAN ANANSI STORIES, AND WEST AFRICAN ANIMAL TALES COLLECTED IN CULTURE-AREA V.

The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1971 Language and Literature, general

University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan A STUDY OF THE CORRESPONDENCES BETVVŒIEN THE ROMAN

DE RENARD. JAMAICAN ANANSI STORIES, AND WEST

AFRICAN ANIMAL TALES COLLECTED IN CULTURE-AREA V

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Richard Emmanuel Smith, B.A ., B .D ., M.A.

******

The Ohio State University 1971

Approved by

A dviser Department of English PLEASE NOTE:

Some pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received.

University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company PREFACE

Emblazoned on the coat-of-arms of the former British.

South American colony of British Guiana was the motto Damus

Petimuscfue Vicissim (We give and take in turn). Used in a dif­ ferent context, this motto appropriately describes a phenomenon long noted by folklorists—the common stock from which people having the most widely divergent cultural and linguistic back­ grounds draw some of their oral narratives, particularizing them with local characters and adapting them to cultural norms so that they constitute a body of oral literature representative of a given area, in spite of their universality.

This study will attempt to isolate from three representa­ tive narrative traditions, those tale-types and episodes which they share. Specifically, it will compile a Type-Motif index, based on

Stith Thompson's indexes, of The Roman de Renard (édite d'après le manuscript de Congé par Mario Roques, 6 vols. Paris, 1948-58), and will collate this with the summaries of Jamaican tales in Helen

Flowers' A Classification of the Folktales of the W est Indies by

Types and Motifs (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana

University, 195 2) and with the summaries of West African tales

(Culture Area V—The Guinea Coast) in May Augusta Klipple's

African Folktales with Foreign Analogues (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 1938), and the motifs in

ii Kenneth Clarke's A Motif-Index of the Folktales of Culture Area V,

West Africa (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University,

195 8), in order to isolate common types and motifs. These common types and motifs will be analyzed for evidence of cultural adapta­ tion and they will, in addition, provide some evidence as to whether Jamaican tales are predominantly W est African or European.

I have given relatively long summaries of the branches of the Roman de Renard in order to preserve something of their satiric atmosphere and to differentiate what is traditional from what is literary. The type-motif index of the Roman de Renard follows Stith Thompson's system; motifs and types which do not comfortably fit Thompson's description are differentiated by the symbol (+) after the number in Thompson. I have also compiled a list of episodes in the Roman de Renard which are not included in

Thompson. Because of the total chaos in the branche numbers of the three editions of the Roman de Renard and also because the

Meon edition (Le Roman de Renart, 4 vols. Paris, 1826) has been superseded by the Ernest Martin edition (Le Roman de Renart,

3 vols. Strasbourg, 1882-87) and the Mario Roques edition, I have provided cross-references in my summary of the branches and in the type-motif index between the latter two editions.

As stated before, the summaries of Jamaican tales are generally taken from Flowers' classification, but with some minor errors having been silently corrected. Some of the summaries of

West African tales (Culture Area V) are taken from May Augusta

iii Klipple's study of African Folktales with Foreign Analogues .

I have incurred many debts, both academic and personal, in the course of my research. Among my academic debts, the most pressing are to Bucknell University which granted me a dis­ sertation fellowship, to Professor Luc Lacourciere of Laval Univer­ sity, Quebec, who kindly provided me with a mimeographed copy of his unpublished paper on the oral branches of the Roman de

Renard in French-Canadian tradition, and, above all, to my adviser. Dr. Francis Lee Utley, v/hose patient understanding and competent scholarship guided this study to its completion.

Among my personal debts, I owe much to my father, who died before the completion of this study, and to my mother, whose letters provided more encouragement than she, perhaps, was aware of. My greatest personal thanks are, of course, to my family, to my children, Hazel-Mae Denise, Mark Lambert, and

Martin Richard, who themselves are sources of joy and thanks­ giving, and, most of all, to my wife for very good and personal reasons. I dedicate this study to her.

IV VITA

January 1, 1936...... Bom - New Amsterdam, Guyana, S. America.

1959 ...... B.A., Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, San German, Puerto Rico.

1962 ...... B.D ., Waterloo Lutheran Univ­ ersity, Waterloo, Ontario, C anada.

1962-1965 ...... Pastor, the Lutheran Church in G uyana.

1965-1967 ...... Teaching Assistant, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio,

1967 ...... M .A ., The Ohio State U niver­ sity, Columbus, Ohio.

1967-1971 ...... Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: English Literature

Studies in Medieval Drama. Professor Martin Stevens

Studies in Beowulf. Professor Robert Estrich

Studies in the works of the Gawain Poet. Professor Francis Utley

Studies in Chaucer. Professor Detlef. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PREFACE...... ii

VITA...... V

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Chapter

I SUMMARY OF BRANCHES IN THE ROQUES EDITION OF THE ROMAN DE RENARD WITH CROSS-REFERENCES TO THE MARTIN ED ITIO N...... 20

II TYPE-INDEX OF THE ROMAN DE RENARD 63

III MOTIF-INDEX OF THE ROMAN DE RENARD 82

IV RENARD MOTIFS NOT LISTED IN THOMPSON .. 118

V TYPE-INDEX OF JAMAICAN TALES HAVING CORRESPONDENCES IN WEST AFRICAN AND RENARD TALES...... 120

VI MOTIF-INDEX OF JAMAICAN TALES HAVING CORRESPONDENCES IN WEST AFRICAN AND RENARD TALES...... 140

VII TYPE-INDEX OF WEST AFRICAN TALES HAVING CORRESPONDENCES IN RENARD ...... 159

VIII MOTIF-INDEX OF WEST AFRICAN TALES HAVING CORRESPONDENCES IN RENARD ...... 162

CONCLUSION...... 165

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 169

VI INTRODUCTION

You have taught me language, and my profit on 't Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language 1 THE TEMPEST, I . ii. 363-365.

Thus does Caliban attempt to transfer responsibility to

Prospero for his own aberrant and selective use of language, but even more fundamental is the subtle irony which places Caliban's aberrant use of language in the context of a drama which uses language poetically to illuminate Shakespeare's vision of life.

Unlike Caliban's, Shakespeare's profit "on" language is that he knows hoW| to shape it to give dramatic and often poignant expres­ sion to the desires, dreams, and fears common to mankind. He is a member of the genus "homo narrans, Man the Narrator.

Homo narrans has existed in all cultures. He has used la n guage passionately to give immortality to his national heroes; he has used language wittily to ridicule the foibles of fools. He has used language to create a fabulous world peopled with toads and orphans who, in marvellous reversals, become princes and princesses; he has used language to explain a physical world

A phrase coined by K. Ranke in an address (Prague, 1960) and cited in Linda Degh's, Folktales and Society; Story- Telling In a Hungarian Peasant Community, trans. Emily H. Schossberger (Indiana, 1969), 353, n.2.

1 2 filled with natural phenomena which are in turn beneficent and malevolent.

But despite cultural differences and geographic distance, homo narrans has created stories which are amazingly similar, often exhibiting variations only in type of character or arrange­ ment of motifs. Melville J. Herskovits remarks on this similarity:

"Stories in the Philippines, in Persia, and in Tibet, wherein animals are characters, exhibit the same series of incidents com­ bined into plots wherein similar points are made. The characters show the greatest variation, as might be expected; but whether rabbit ^tortoise, or spider figures as the trickster in the New World and African Negro tales, or Jackal and crow figures in the stories in India and ancient Greece, the animals do similar things in 2 similar sequences for similar reasons . "

It is the awareness of this amazing similarity between tales told among the most widely separated peoples which led to 3 the attempt to establish the provenience of a tale. Early scholars constructed huge generalizations to explain this phen­ om enon. The Grimm Brothers, under the in flu en ce of the heady discoveries of comparative linguistics, theorized that tales with 4 with common incidents share an Indo-European patrimony; Max

Muller postulated a mythopoeic age when man constructed his

^The Myth of the Negro Past (Boston, 1958), 273.

3pora good discussion of this , see Stith Thompson's The Folktale (1946), 367-448.

^Thompson, 370. pantheon of gods around the sun, the dawn, and the sky and he traces all folklore back to man's preoccupation with the live- giving sun; proceeding on a less esoteric level, Andrew Lang applied the concept of biological evolution to the study of folk­ lore, theorizing that all men evolved in a single evolutionary path through three absolutely identical stages of savagery, barbarism, and civilization; thus primitive people possessed similar beliefs, tales, and customs;^ rejecting both Indo-European and mytholog­ ical theories, Theodor Benfey viewed India as the source of folk­ tale tradition while Cosquin, modifying Benfey, suggested that

India was not the source but rather the reservoir into which tales of diverse traditions flowed and from which they became diffused.

These theories could not be adequately tested because of the absence of an orderly classification of collected tales. The major task of folklore was therefore seen as the collecting and classification of folktales, using botanical classification as a paradigm, so that scholars could employ a much more rigidly

scientific methodology in arriving at their conclusions. On the basis of the orderly arrangement of tales according to types and motifs, a scholar could trace the diffusion of a tale-type and.

For an extremely helpful discussion of Lang and Muller, see Richard M. Dors on's "The Eclipse of Solar Mythology" in The Study of Folklore, ed. Alan Dundes (Englewood Cliffs, N .J., 1965), 57-83. ^Thompson, 376-79. 7 A tale-type is defined by Thompson as "a traditional tale that has an independent existence" (415). A motif is "The small­ est element in a tale having a power to persist in tradition. " 4 after careful analysis of variants, posit its area of origin. This task was undertaken by a group of Finnish scholars, ably led by O Kaarle Krohn. The preparation of the classification was entrusted to Antti Aame who published it in 1910 under the title Verzeichnis der Marchentypen (FF Communications No. 3, Helsinki). Stith

Thompson's second revision of this work appeared in 1964 (The

Types of The Folktale; A Classification and Bibliography, Helsinki) and attempted to extend coverage of the index to include parts of

Europe omitted by Aarne, West Asia, and the lands settled by these peoples. Thompson also undertook the monumental task of compiling a motif-index (Motif-Index of Folk Literature; A C lass­ ification Of Narrative Elements in Folk-tales, Ballads, Myths,

Fables, Medieval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Test-Books and

Local Legends, Revised and Enlarged, 6 vols, ^loomington,

Indiana, 9667 1 ).

But this method generally assumed that homo narrans was at his mythopoeic best on Western European soil. Even if some of his narrative elements could be traced back to India, it was the

species Western European homo narrans which was the fount from which all, or at least many, narratives flowed. Some scholars saw the species African homo narrans as a type of Caliban whose

"profit on (language)" was to poorly imitate the narratives of a

7 (Continued) Motifs fall into three classes: actions in a tale, items in the back­ ground of the action, single incidents. Thompson,_op. cit., 415- 4 1 6 . ^Thus the name the Finnish method for this kind of study; it is also called the historic-geographic method. 5 more sophisticated Western Europe and to create a world which was fear-ridden, superstitious, and barbarian. Thus A. B. Ellis remarks on the limitations of African mentality; "They can imitate, but they cannot invent, or even apply. They constantly fail to g grasp and generalize a notion. " Others found it difficult to be­ lieve that Negroes could possess an oral literature of any artistic distinction which could be equated with Western European folk­ tales. Paul Radin, for e^.ample, relates Carl Meinhof's account of the vigorous and indignant protest which followed the appear­ ance of a collection of folktales from the Cameroons. The pro­ testors believed that no Negro could have composed them. ^^ A few scholars such as W. H, I. Bleek and R. S. Rattray, even though characteristically adopting the superior tone of the Western

European, nevertheless called for careful study of the African materials which were being collected. Rattray's motivation was practical. Anthropology was to be the handmaid of practical admin­ istration leading to that "cultured sympathy" which could only be acquired from accurate knowledge of a people's customs and lore.^^

Bleek's motivation was less mundane. He encouraged research to

The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of The Slave Coast of West Africa (Reprinted Chicago, 1964), 10. R. S. Rattray disagrees with what he calls the Ellis school which denigrates things African. See his Ashanti (Oxford, 1923), 139.

^^African Folktales, (Bollingen Series, Princeton, 1970), 2 .

^^Quoted by Rattray from a Royal Commission Report in Preface to Ashanti (London, 1923). 6 establish whether the tales he had published "are indeed the real offspring of the desert, and can be considered as truly indigenous

Native literature, or whether they have been either purloined from the superior white race, or at least brought into existence by the stimulus which contact with the latter gave to the Native mind ..12

A further assumption was made that aboriginal African cultural traits had been stamped out by the repression of slavery and this led to the subsidiary hypothesis that we must look to

Europe rather than to Africa for the sources from which African and

New World tales derive. Lorenzo Turner provides a concise state­ ment of this assumption:

For several centuries now many persons have thought of sub-Saharan Africa primarily as a land to be exploited both as regards human lives and materials. They have thought of the inhabitants of this region as not deserving the respect accorded other peoples . So inferior, they have contended, was the African's culture that it could not survive when brought into con­ tact with the culture of the Europeans. Con­ sequently, the African on arriving in New World, they have said, abandoned his own culture and has not even yet been able to assimilate thoroughly that of the white m a n . ^

These assumptions are obviously motivated by a narrow ethnocentrism. Reputable scholars, however, on the basis of rigidly scientific and objective research, have arrived at similar

12 Reynard The Fox In South Africa; or Hottentot Fables and Tales (London, 1864), xiii. 11 "African Survivals In the New World with Special Emphasis on The Arts" in Africa From the Point of View of American Negro Scholars; Presence Africaine, ed. John A. David (Paris, n.d.), 101. 7 conclusions, though without Ellis' implication of racial inferiority.

In her introduction to Walter Jekyll's collection of Jamaican folk­ lore, Alice Werner concludes that "the African element in the stories before us is far less evident than in 'Uncle Remus, ' and in many cases overlaid and inextricably mixed up with matter of

European origin. At least eleven out of the fifty-one stories before us can be set down as imported, directly or indirectly from

Europe. Roger Abrahams , in a much more general analysis of the influences shaping folklore in the former British West Indian colon ies,claim s that most of the trickster stories told in this area "are more closely allied in form and structure to European stories than African. From his study of a thousand tales told by Afro-Americans born in the South, Richard Dors on declared that the animal tales are demonstrably European. In an interesting comment, he points out that when he played a recording of tales told by his most fertile raconteur, James Douglas Suggs, to Mel­ ville Herskovits, Herskovits exclaimed that the tales were

African; when the same tape was played to Stith Thompson,

^^Walter Jekyll, Jamaican Song and Story (London, 1907), x ii.

^^The larger of these territories (Jamaica, Trinidad, Bar­ bados), are now independent and are referred to as the West I n d ie s.

^^"The Shaping of Folklore Traditions in The British West Indies, " a paper read at the 37th Congress of Americanists, Mar del Plata, Argentina (September, 1966). Thompson exclaimed that the tales were European. He concludes:

"But the question of origins is susceptible of proof, and the proof 17 of European origins lies in my notes. " And May Augusta Klipple combed through almost nine thousand published African stories

(about five thousand distinctly individual tales), to find approxi­ mately three hundred putatively European tale types Klipple refused to resolve the question of sources, suggesting that such a question can be resolved only after detailed study of a given tale.^^

On the other hand, a group of scholars with equally impec­ cable scholarly credentials , accord African patrimony to New World stories. Among these is Alice Werner who, though attributing

European provenience to Jamaican tales, claimed that the sources

^^American Negro Folktales (New York, 1967), 15-17. When he compared West African motifs in Kenneth Clarke's '|A Motif-index of the Folktales of Culture Area V, West Africa, " (doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 195 7), with those in his own collection, Dors on found a correspondence of only about ten percent. Of twenty-two African motifs found in over two hun­ dred motifs in his tales, only one is not known in Europe (K1162 - Dupe tricked into reporting speaking skull; is executed for lying), 18 African Folk Tales with Foreign Analogues, (doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 1938), 9.

19 Klipple, 910. But several studies on the provenience of The Tar Baby story have far from resolved the problem. See E.G. Parson, "The Provenience of Certain Folk Tales. Ill, Tar Baby," XXX (1919), 227-234; W. N. Brown, "The Tar-Baby Story at Home, " Scientific Monthly, XV (1922), 228-234; Amelio M. Espinosa, "Notes on the Origin and History of the Tar-Baby Story," JAP, XLIII (1930), 1 2 9 -2 0 9 , LVI, 3 1 -3 7 . 9 for the U ncle Remus sto ries were African, Brer Fox and Brer W olf replacing the African Hyena and Brer B'ar the African elephant, the 20 lion making few appearances because of altered circumstances.

Joel Chandler Harris himself agreed with this conclusion when he 21 asserted that the Uncle Remus tales are of remote African origin.

In her collection of one hundred and forty-nine Jamaican tales,

Martha Warren Beckwith finds that more than half of them are also 22 told in Africa. The Africanist theory is also fully accepted by

Elsie Clews Parsons who arranges the tales in her collections 23 according to clear African provenience. Perhaps the most re­ nowned of the Africanists, Melville J. Herskovits, after a life­ time of intensive study of African and New World culture, is con­ vinced that "though some writers have stressed European and

Indian influences in Negro tales, there is little question of the retention of Africanisms. Herskovits sees such retention as

on "African Mythology" in Mythology of All Races, VII (Boston, 1925), 292. O j The Life and Letters of Joel Chandler Harris (Boston & New York, 1918), 162. It should be noted that F. M. Warren in comparing episodes in Uncle Remus and the European cycle of tales, the Roman de Renard, uncovered many connections between the two in their details of adventure. She also found sixteen episodes for which no counterpart was found in Remus. See "’Uncle Remus' and 'The Roman de Renard,"’ MEN, V, (1890), 1 2 9 -1 3 5 . 9 9 "Jamaica Anansi S tories, ’’ MAFLS, XVII (1924).

23gee Elsie Clews Parsons' notes in "Folk-Lore of the Antilles, French and English, " MAFLS, Ft. Ill, XXVI (1943).

^^The Myth of The Negro Past (Boston, 1958), 272. 10 inevitable, given the role of homo narrans in a culture:

The relation between a literature and the cul­ ture of which it is a part is reciprocal, and the artist is the medium through which these in­ fluences flow. The world of the story-teller is largely defined by his culture, and in com­ posing his tale whatever its form or length, he draws on the world he knows, whether as reality or fantasy (or one in which tradition has fused both), for setting, plot, character­ ization, and the sanctions that give these meaning. Yet by this act he reinforces the existing body of customs, bringing to it the validating force of emotional r e s p o n s e . 25

And Daniel J. Crowley, a self-confessed Africanist, is cynical of the claim that tales recorded in Africa originated in Europe or India

in view of the importance given to verbalization in most African c o u n tr ie s.

Crowley documents his Africanist conclusions in his

study of tradition and creativity in Bahamian folk tales, though he confesses to the "almost insuperable difficulties in assigning 27 definite provenience to so large and mixed a body of lore. "

Recently, however, Crowley has been attempting to overcome these

"insuperable difficulties. " In a paper read at the annual meeting 28 of the American Folklore Society, Indiana University, in 1968,

25 Melville J. and Frances S. Herskovits, Dahomean Nar­ rative: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (Chicago, 1958), 70.

"Negro Folklore. An Africanist's View, " The Texas Quarterly, V (1962), 60-71. 9 7 I Could Talk Qld-Story Good: Creativity in Bahamian Folklore (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966), 129, O Q "Diffusion Studies in Africa. " Mimeographed. 11 he announced preparation of an index of African materials based on the system developed by E. Ojo Arewa and Winifred Lambrecht 29 in their doctoral dissertations at Berkeley. With the aid of his students, Crowley has synthesized nine thousand texts, and classified three-quarters of these. At the time of writing his paper, he was synthesizing another two thousand texts and at least a thousand more were awaiting synthesis; two thousand additional texts, mostly from small collections, had not yet been received. His preliminary findings based on the seventy-five percent of the texts classified indicate that only nine percent of the motifs found in the Caribbean area are traceable to Africa and, even more remarkable, only a single motif told by Afro-Americans 30 is traceable to Africa. These are obviously tentative conclu­ sions based on an amended Thompson index, but they seem to corroborate Dors on's conclusions that the New World African repertoire can be classified into two groups of stories, one point­ ing to Africa, the other to Europe and Anglo-America, and that the

29 See E. Ojo Arewa, A Classification of the Folktales of the Northern East African Cattle Area by Types (doctoral disserta­ tion, University of California, Berkeley, 1966), and Winifred Lambrecht, A Tale Type Index for Central Africa (doctoral disserta­ tion, University of California, Berkeley, 1967). Arewa uses mixed criteria in a four-part classification, the first of which is not found in Thompson (Tales of Origin). The others follow Thompson's cate­ gories Animal Tales, Ordinary Tales, Formula Tales. Lambrecht adds another category. Traits of Character. ^ ^Crowley arrived at this figure by comparing the African motifs with Caribbean motifs in Helen L. Flowers' A Classification of the Folktale of the West Indies by Types and Motifs (doctoral dissertation, Indiana University 195 2). Flowers' index is based on Stith Thompson's while Crowley uses the Arewa-Lambrecht system. To what degree this may affect his conclusion is not known, 12

stories told in the Atlantic and Caribbean islands and in Northeast •

South America show African provenience whereas the tales of the 31 old South show European.

These contradictory claims prompted my own investigation .

It was thought that it should be possible in a very limited study

of a representative body of Jamaican animal tales to establish cor­

respondences through a type-motif index with a representative body 32 of European and W est African animal tales from Culture Area V

and to suggest whether in the context of this limited study these

correspondences to Jamaican tales are predominantly European or

African. I propose to use the Roman de Renart, édite d'après le

manuscript de Cange par Mario Rogues, 6 vols. (Paris, 1948-58)

as a representative boyd of European animal tales. Helen L.

Flowers' summaries of Jamaican tales in her unpublished disserta­ tion (A Classification of the Folktale of the West Indies by Types 33 and Motifs) will provide the Jamaican material, and two indexes,

one of a Type-Motif Index of African tales with foreign analogues,

and the other, a motif index of African tales from Culture Area

31 Richard M. D orson, American Negro F o lk ta les, 17. 32 This includes the section of Africa frequently referred to as the Guinea Coast. It is the south central portion of the western bulge of Africa north of the equator. It covers several densely populated sites of ancient kingdoms of great power and w ealth .

See n. 30 above.

^^See May Augusta Klipple, n. 18 above and Kenneth Clarke, n. 17 above. 13 will serve as the basis for comparison.

I am aware of the difficulties of such a project. To begin with, my characterization of the Roman de Renart as a representa­ tive body of European animal folk-tales conflicts with the prevail­ ing scholarly opinion advanced by Lucien Poulet that the work is 35 literary. The thrust and parry of scholarly debate over the literary or folkloric origins of the Roman de Renard does not con­ cern us here; v/hat it important is that there is a growing body of scholarly opinion which takes a middle ground between the 37 extreme positions of Leopold Sudre's folkloric thesis and

Foulet's literary thesis. John Flinn tentatively suggests the pos­ sibility that future research may establish some folkloric sources:

"Peut-être faudra-t-il, à ia suite d'autres découvertes, attribuer une 3 8 part un peu plus large au folklore..." In a study of the relationship between the Roman de Renard and Spanish and other tales, Juan Nogues affirms that the greater part of the Reynardian episodes are folkloric in origin;

^^Lucien Foulet, Le Roman de Renard (Paris, 1914), 18, declares "le Roman de Renard sort des livres..."

^^See John Flinn's Le Roman de Renart dans la Littérature française et dans les littératures étrangères au Moyen Age (Paris, 1963), 7-34, for a good discussion of scholarly positions. O n Leopold Su dre, Les Sources du Roman de Renart (Paris, 1893), 339, concludes that "le Roman de Renart est une oeuvre purement traditionelle. " O q Flinn, 0 £ . c i t . , 31. 14

Estos cuentos o historias son de origan popular la mayoria y se hallan en el folk­ lore de distintos paises, especialmente en Espana, en cuya tradicion oral continuan repiüendose.39

More recently, N. F. Blake in his edition of Caxton's Reynard is less tentative than Flinn in suggesting dual influence:

Foulet was perhaps too quick to dismiss oral tradition altogether. The authors of the Roman de Renard have found some of their inspiration and them es from stories handed down orally, but they also drew extensively upon written collections of fables and other beast stories. Just how much the Roman de Renard owes to the one and to the other has not yet been d e c i d e d . 40

What is also important is that many of the episodes in the Roman de Renard are found in the oral literature of people all over the wo rid.

39 Estudios sobre el Roman de Renard: su relacion con los Cuentos espaholes y extranjeros, Filosoffa y Letras, Tomo DC, num. 2 (Salamanca, 1956), 251 . 40 Caxton; The Historv of Reynard the Fox, ed. N . F. Blake, EETS, No. 263 (Oxford, 1970), xviii.

Reference has already been made to W. H. I. Bleek's collection of tales (see n. 12 above) and to F. M. Warren's study of the Reynard material in Uncle Remus (see n. 21). Luc Lacour­ ciere in a paper read before the Fifth Congress of The International Society for Folk-Narrative Research in Bucharest, August 1969, reported on a French-Canadian cycle of animal tales which he called "Les Branches orales du Roman de Renart dans la tradition Canadienne-francaise. " Finally, Adolph Gerber's monograph "Great Russian Auimal Tales, " PMIA, VI (1891) compares a collec­ tion of fifty Russian Tales with the most important literary and oral variants (including Reynard) which have come to his notice. 15

Another difficulty is, of course, the sheer physical bulk of the Roman de Renard itself. It is a work of multiple authorship of about twenty thousand lines (Roques edition) which has until now successfully dared anyone to translate it into English. Be­ cause of its length, I have limited myself to dealing with the

Mario Roques edition, even though the Meon^^ and Martin^^ editions contain additional episodes, some of which are widely diffused in other oral traditions. The work is divided into several tales called branches by their authors. The Meon edition numbers thirty-two branches, the Martin edition twenty-seven, and the

Roques edition nineteen.

I propose to use the animal tales recorded in Culture Area

V, West Africa, because this area, known as the Guinea Coast, is the original homeland of most West Indian Blacks. The evidence for this claim is historical as well as linguistic. In 1750, the

Gold Coast furnished annually to the West Indies ten thousand slaves,many of whose W est African origin is mentioned in

Jamaican historicalrecords.The linguistic evidence has been

M. M ^on, Le Roman de Renart, 4 v o l s . (Paris, 1826).

^^Ernest Martin, Le Roman de Renart, 3 vols. (Strasbourg, 1882-1887).

^^A. B. Ellis, History of the Gold Coast of West Africa (London, 1893), 94.

Monk Lewis in Journal of a West Indian Proprietor, 1815-1817, ed. Mona Wilson (Boston and New York, 1929), 290, recalls that a mother became reconciled to her daughter's incor­ rigibility because "the girl's father was a Guinea-man. " Lewis also refers to the presence of Eboes and others. 16 well documented by Melville and Frances Herskovits who have

shown that many of the idioms and phonetic characteristics pecu­

liar to Jamaica and other New World areas can be traced to West 46 African speech.

Not only did West African speech patterns survive the

physically arduous middle passage; included in the cultural bag­ gage which the slaves brought from their West African homeland were supernatural figures and animal heroes who played important

roles in their folk narrative. The most popular of these heroes was

Anansi, the spider-trickster whose origin is variously accounted

for in different traditions. One tradition holds that Anansi was

once a man. In a Hausa story, he was a smith who tricked a lion and was trampled to pieces; the pieces later became a spider.

In a Dagomba tale (a people living in the Northern section of

Togoland, now Togo), he was a shrewd man who claimed to have

greater power and magic than the chief who, as a result, unsuc­

cessfully attempted to kill him. Finally, after causing the death

of the chief's favorite son, he turns himself into a spider. Thus, the cleverest of men became the cleverest of creatures living in 4 8 the house of man. He functions in a tale told in the lower Congo

46 "Suriname Folklore, " Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, XXVII (New York, 1936), 130. See also Lorenzo Turner's study of African linguistic survivals in Gullah dialect (Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect C hicago, 194^ ).

^^Alice Wemer, "African Mythology" in Mythology of All Races, VII (Boston, 1925), 321. ^®A. W. Cardinall, Tales Told in Togoland (reprinted by Negro University Press, Westport, Conn., 1970), 140-145. 17 as a Promethean figure who brought fire down from Nzambi Mpungu

(Heaven) and won the daughter of Nzambi (Earth) by so doing.

His name functions as a generic name for all stories (Anansesen) among the Ashanti people of Ghana in a tale which tells how

Nyankonpon (the sky-god) ceded to Anansi the right to have all tales bear his name after Anansi had successfully performed sev era l tasks.In another Ashanti tale, Anansi wins the title of ta le-owner from the Rabbit in a tale-telling duel in which cunning met cunning and a kindly Nyame decided in favor of Anansi, the new tale-owner.^^

The tradition which ascribes human origin and character­ istics to Anansi survives in Jamaica. He is described as "a little bald-headed man with a falsetto voice and a cringing manner in the presence of his superiors, " and he is represented both as a 5 2 man and as a spider. Anansi also survives in Jamaica as a synonym for folk-tales, even for those in which he does not occur, and the term Anansi story includes riddles and proverbs as well as tales. His popularity is such that he dominates the Jamaican 53 tale, paradoxically dwarfing all other animals both by the

4Q R. E. Dennett, "Folk-lore of the Fjort," FLS, XLI (1897)m 74-75.

^^R. S. Rattray, Akan-Ashanti Folk-tales (Oxford, 1930), x iii. ^^Cardinall, _op. c it., 38. 5 2 Martha Beckwith, Black Roadway; A Study of Jamaican Folklife (Chapel Hill, 1928), 219. 5 3 It should be noted that the term Jamaican Anansi tales is misleading, since it seems to imply that the Anansi tale is pecular to Jamaica. It occurs throughout the New World. 18 frequency of his appearance and by the centrality of his character­ ization . He is pictured as superior in cunning, unscrupulous, and shrewd. He generally outwits the other animals, though . some­ times retributive justice intervenes, making him both the trickster and the tricked. He has a wife and family who often share his exploits and sometimes suffer from his greed. Tacoomah, a name variously applied to his wife or to his quick-witted son or, more often, to a neighbor, serves as his accomplice in strategy and his foil in knavery. In addition to Anansi and Tacoomah, Tiger, the dull-witted bully, appears as the victim of the wilier Anansi.

The cast of characters in the Jamaican tale includes other animals and insects, most of whom, with the exception of Tiger, Monkey, and Assono (a type unknown) are native to Jamaica: Parrot, Black­ bird (as Cling-Cling), Ground Dove, Duck-ant, Bub-but (butterfly).

Tumble-bug, Snake, Lizard, Turtle, Old Conch the Snail. Cat,

Dog, and Rat share a group of stories, and Cock and Cockroach appear as protagonists.

It is clear then that a large group of active West African tradition bearers existed in Jamaica to support and perpetuate a narrative tradition, but Jamaica hardly presents a tidy cultural unit. Seven heterogeneous cultures and ethnic groups have min­ gled to create what MacEdward Leach calls a "labyrinthine jungle of cross culturization. Spaniards, Englishmen, German peasants

"Folklore of Jamaica: A Survey, " Schweizerisches Archiv fur Vo Iks unde, 59 (1963), 60-81. 19 settling the hills of Westmoreland, Chinese, East Indians, some

Americans, a vagrant class of Scotch and Irish criminals, a group of Frenchmen escaping the Haitian rebellion—all these combined with the expatriate West African slaves and aboriginal Arawak people to create a rich and varied culture. But cultural persist­ ence of the folk ways of many of these groups is minimal. What predominate are African and European cultural traits, and to make a comparative study of the animal tales of this region is to record a process of cultural symbiosis, in which two alien cultures,

African and European, came together in an alien environment, con­ tributed their distinctive ethos, and developed new modes of expression. It is to study the way in which homo narrans profits from language by using it to shape a narrative tradition which derives from the many cultural influences by which he has been a ffected . CHAPTER I

SUMMARY OF BRANCHES IN THE ROQUES EDITION OF THE ROMAN DE RENARD WITH CROSS-REFERENCE TO THE MARTIN EDITION

Roques, Branche I, 1 - 413; Martin 1 - 397.

Winter had passed, the white pine flowered, and the rose began to bloom; it was the time of the Ascension when Noble sum­ moned all his barons to court. Everyone responded to the summons except Renard and, in his absence, the barons outdid each other in defaming him. Ysengrin, the wolf, is most insistent in demand­ ing justice for Renard's conduct to his wife and children. Noble advises Ysengrin to desist from his claim. Domestic problems ought to be prudentially accepted in silence not broached in courts for no one is protected from them. Brun, the bear, scolds the

King for speaking with such impropriety. It is the King's duty, now that the peace has been declared, to prevent a resumption to arms by pronouncing judgment on the quarrel between Ysengrin and

Renard. Bruyant, the bull, agrees and claims that were he Ysengrin, he would have pulverized Renard and thrown his stinking carcass into a latrine. Grimbert, the badger, advises caution since there was no proof of overt violence, no indication to show that Hersent had been forcibly molested—no broken doors, no broken furniture.

20 21

Ysengrin should have been less hasty; he has only succeeded in

making his wife the subject of gossip. Hersent, Ysengrin's wife,

blames her husband's jealousy for the present problem and con­

fesses her willingness to undergo trial by ordeal to prove her

innocence. With delightful irony, she claims "Renart de moi ne

fist / que de sa mere ne feist" {147 - 148), Other nobles con­ tribute to the debate. It is finally agreed that Renard should be

summoned before the court and if he fails to appear without fur­

nishing an excuse, he is to be forcibly dragged before the court

and sentenced. Noble, wanting to settle the quarrel, demands that

Ysengrin accept his wife's offer to undergo trial by ordeal (by

boiling water and by fire). Ysengrin realizes the danger in this

and prefers to withdraw his complaint and personally seek redress

for his grievances . Noble warns him that whoever breaks the

peace will have to answer to him. Thus Renard's cause takes a

good turn but, at this moment, Chantecleer, Pinte, and three other

ladies arrive to implore the King's justice against Renard who had

killed Copette; they drag a litter bearing the mutilated body.

There is much clamour and Chantecleer, weeping, demands justice

at the King's feet. Noble, in a loud roar, announces his intention

to punish Renard. Ysengrin is happy at this sudden turn of events

and gushes praise for the King's greatness.

Roques, Br. 1, 414 - 491; Martin 1, 298 - 473.

Noble makes arrangements for Copette's burial. Brun is

to have the tomb built in the area which separates the garden from 22 the plain. Brun puts on the stole given him by Noble and all the

animals keep vigil. Tardif, the snail, sings the three lessons;

Rooniaus intones the versicle and Brichemer the tract. Brun

pronounces the prayer custodiet anima. After the vigil, the matins

follows, and then the internment. The grave dug under an oak is

covered with a marble slab. Brun is commanded to summon Renard.

While he is on his way, a great miracle takes place at court.

Couart, the hare, had been ill for two days. After Copette's

burial, he went to lie on her tomb and when he awoke, found him­

self healed. Copette was rumored to be a martyr; Ysengrin con­

veniently remembers that he has a buzzing in his ear and after

lying on the tomb, he too declares himself healed. These miracles

can hardly help Renard's case. Grimbert, Renard 's cousin, is

quick to realize that they will leave a powerful impression on even

the least prejudiced soul.

Roques, Branche I, 492 - 744; Martin I, 474 - 718.

Brun arrives before Renard's castle; Renard has just

dined off a succulent chicken when he hears Brun calling. He

declares that he was about to join the King's court but has delayed

to eat an excellent French dish since at court the rich and powerful

are fawned over and receive the finest meats while the less power­

ful are forced to compete with the dogs for the most meagre fare.

Renard has therefore delayed to choose the finest of ham and honey

from his provisions. At the mention of honey. Brun forgets his

mission and requests that he be taken to Renard's supply. Renard 23 pretends to be afraid of Brun's perfidy but at Brun's protestations,. announces himself convinced of his integrity. He takes Brun to the entrance of a wood where the forester Lanfroi had split an oak tree and had placed two wedges in the opening to prevent it from reclosing. Brun, at Renard's signal, places his snout in the open­ ing; Renard removes the wedges and Brun is caught in an ugly embrace. Lanfroi arrives with a group of peasants and Brun reflects that it would be more prudent to lose his muzzle than his head.

He therefore painfully squirms out of the trap, leaving the skin of his neck and his neck and his ears behind. Renard mocks him, ' asking him which monastic order wears such a fine red hat. Brun returns to the court half-dead.

Roques, Branche I, 745 - 939; Martin I, 729 - 921.

Noble next sends Tibert to summon Renard; had he dared,

Tibert would have refused to go but he could find no good excuse.

He arrives at Renard's stronghold and after stating his mission, asks Renard for something to eat. Renard announces that he could take Tibert to some very fine mice and leads him to a neighboring village whose hen houses he had completely emptied. Renard takes him to a priest's home but Renard knows that the priest had neither grain nor mice for his wife had completely ruined him, even to the point of making him father of her son, Martin of Orleans.

This Martin had set traps in the hole Tibert was entering. The poet remarks that he is the worthy son of a priest for he uses his study­ ing time to hunt cats and foxes. Tibert soon recognizes his folly 24 for he is caught around the neck in one of the traps. The priest, his wife, and son arrive and Tibert defends himself as well as he can. He badly mauls them and finally escapes, bruised but proud at having wounded his tormentors.

Roques, Branche I, 940 - 1,678; Martin I, 921 - 1,618.

Furnished with letters from the King, Grimbert, Renard's cousin, is next sent to summon him. Arriving at Renard's strong­ hold, Grimbert first prudently eats a good meal before stating his mission. After reading the letters. Renard curses the day of his birth and confesses that were the monks easy to live with, he would have entered the monastery of Clunyor Clairvaux. Grimbert advises him to confess his sins and Renard, relishing the mul­ tiplicity and variety of his misdeeds, proudly catalogues his sins at length, including the trick he played on Ysengrin when he made him fish in a fountain one fine night to catch the moon, mistaken for white cheese. Grimbert absolves the repentant Renard and they set out for the court. Renard conveniently loses his way and leads Grimbert near to the convent's farm-house. Renard suggests that they frolic with a few chickens but Grimbert, reminding him of his recent confession, would have none of it. Reluctantly, he proceeds to the court where his arrival causes a stir among the assembled barons but affecting a calm he did not feel, Renard demands to be heard. He accuses his detractors of jealousy, philosophizing that those whom nature made serfs will always have a servile heart. His speech contains much social criticism of 25 barons who advise a change in coinage to inflate their own purses and of those who consume other people's goods and profits.

He blames the wounds of the King’s messengers on their greed.

The King replies that Renard can defend himself well but that since artifice is no longer in season, he will not escape punishment for his misdeeds. Grimbert objects that since Renard has obeyed the King's summons, he should not be sentenced before being heard. The King, however, submits to the judgment of his court.

They condemn him to death on the gallows and the King orders his immediate execution. The animals mistreat him; even Couard, the hare, pelts him from afar but cowers when Renard shakes his head at him. Renard throws himself on the King's mercy; he is a great sinner and should be. allowed to repent. He is willing to take up the cross and make a pilgrimage to Rome to ask God's forgiveness.

The King agrees, provided that he never return since even good people return as rascals after a pilgrimage. Renard dons the accouterments of the pilgrim: his oaken staff, his sash, and the cross over his right shoulder. He forgives everyone before leaving and receives a talisman (a ring) from Queen Friere who requests that he pray for them. He sets out, seizing Couard, the hare, who had remained hidden under a hedge. From a safe distance.

Renard throws down his staff and throws away his sash and his cross. He mockingly tells the King that he brings greetings from

Noradin the sultan. While he is enjoying his escape. Couard escapes. The animals, spurred on by the King, pursue Renard who gains the safety of his stronghold. 26

Roques, Branche I, 1679 - 2260; Martin la, 1619 - 2202.

King Noble lays siege to Renard's castle, Maupertuis, but it is so strongly secured that Renard can appear at the battle­ ments and taunt his enemies. He names his victims individually, rehearsing the tricks he has played on them and boasting that his castle is so well stocked that he could withstand their assaults indefinitely. The nobles attack repeatedly but in vain. Renard's castle holds. One evening, tired after a day of continuous if vain assaults, the nobles sleep soundly under trees. Renard

sneaks out of his castle and securely ties each of them by tail or

feet or neck to the trees under which they sleep. He then goes to the queen and attempts to violate her and she, thinking that it is the King, does not object. She, however, awakes and arouses

the nobles with her screams when she discovers Renard. The

nobles are incapable of helping her, all except Tardif, the snail,

the standard bearer, whom Renard had neglected to tie. He re­

leases the nobles and captures Renard. Renard is cruelly pummelled

by the animals, all competing with each other to reach him. Un­

noticed by the rout. Renard cruelly mutilates Pele, the rat. Mean­

while, Queen Friere gives Grimbert to pass on to Renard a charm

which could save his life and warns him that he tell no one. Grim­

bert advises Renard to confess his sins and to dispose of his

possessions. Renard disposes of his goods to his children and

his wife but warns Grimbert that should his wife remarry, she is

to forfeit all that he has given her for "quant li hom gist en la 27 biere,/ sa fome regarde derrier/ s'ele voit home a son plaisir"

(2059 - 2061). Ysengrin demands that Renard be hung but, at this moment, Renard's wife ironically arrives with a huge ransom of silver and gold. Casting his eyes covetously upon the gold. Noble declares Renard pardoned because of his Wife and she undertakes to guarantee that in the future. Renard will keep the peace. But at this moment Chave-Souris, the husband of Pele, the rat killed by Renard, arrives with his sister and brothers and demands jus­ tice. Renard sees his danger, sends his children home, and escapes up a tree, refusing to obey Noble's commands to descend.

Noble sends for axes to cut the tree down. Renard takes a huge

stone and knocks Noble unconscious . The other animals run to his aid and Renard safely scampers down the tree and returns home.

Roques, Branche I, 2261 - 2798; Martin Ib, 2203 - 2748.

Noble publishes an order commanding that Renard be caught and brought to the court to be hung. Renard prays to be made unrecognizable. His prayers are answered for while hunting, he enters the courtyard of a dyer and falls into his vat of yellow dye. Pretending to be a dyer who had come to test the quality of a fellow craftsman's work and had found it wanting. Renard is pulled out of the vat. Renard leaves and meets Ysengrin. His transformation is so radical that Ysengrin does not recognize him.

Changing his voice and language. Renard claims that he is Galopin, an English Jongleur; he has lost his flute and indeed has not eaten for two days. Ysengrin tells him of Renard and Renard fervently 28 wishes that he does not resemble him. Ysengrin invites Renard to play his flute at court but when Renard declines with the excuse that his flute had been stolen, Ysengrin claims that he knows where to find a flute and takes Renard to the home of a villein. They wait until the villein is asleep then Ysengrin climbs through an open window, takes the flute, and passes it to Renard who immed­ iately closes the window. The villein awakes, and summons his dogs who castrate Ysengrin. Ysengrin returns home and Hersent, his wife, becomes violently angry when she discovers the cruel mutilation which prevents her from performing her wifely duties.

Her carnality is underscored as she leaves her husband with the justification "quant il ne puet la chose faire;/ que ai ge plus de lui que faire/" (2787 - 2788).

Roques, Branche I, 2799 - 3256; Martin Ib, 2749 - 3219.

Renard, still disguised as a jongleur,leams to play the flute in fifteen days and then meets his wife, Hermeline, at the moment of her marriage to Poncet, Grimbert's cousin. Everyone had insisted that Renard had been hung and Tibert had even claimed that he had witnessed the hanging. No one recognizes

Renard who is invited to the wedding by Poncet. All the animals are present and they prudently leave after the meal, all except

Hersent, who has remained behind to prepare the nuptial bed, and

Renard. Renard persuades Poncet that if he makes a pilgrimage to the tomb of Copette, the martyr, he would sire a son that very night. Renard had noticed a trap on the tomb and Poncet is caught 29 and later mauled by hunting hounds. Renard returns and discloses his identity to Hermeline and, after beating her, throws her out of doors with her confidante. Hersent. The two ladies accuse each other of adultery and soon come to blows. They are separated by a holy man on a pilgrimage and reconciled to their respective h u sb an d s.

Roques, Branche II, 325 7 - 3732; Martin Br. IV, 1 - 478.

Renard is thirsty after his successful raid on the barn­ yard of the Moines Blancs. At a well in the courtyard, he sees his reflection and takes it to be his w ife's. Intending to join her, he gets into one of the buckets and is trapped in the well.

Ysengrin, less successful in his search for food, arrives at the well, sees Renard, and confuses his own reflection for his w ife's. He threatens Renard for making an illicit rendezvous with his wife. Renard, however, pretends to be in paradise where food abounds. Ysengrin is anxious to join him there but not before he swears to forgive Renard. Ysengrin confesses his sins and prays for forgiveness by irreverently turning his backside to the e a s t.

Ysengrin then jumps into the bucket but on the way down, he meets Renard going up. Renard explains that such is the fashion in paradise, when one enters, another must leave. Renard thus escapes a very difficult situation while Ysengrin is caught, to be discovered later by the monks and beaten. He escapes death only by pretending to be dead. 30

Roques, Branche III, 3733 - 3928; Martin II, 1 - 18, XXIV, 1 - 178.

After expulsion from Eden, Adam and Eve are given a marvellous wand by God which they could use to obtain what they need. Adam merely had to strike the sea with the wand to create what he needed. Adam strikes the sea, a sheep emerges. Eve, wanting a turn, strikes the sea but a wolf emerges which chases the sheep. Adam creates a dog which pursues the wolf. New animals are created, Adam creating the domesticated animals.

Eve the wild ones. Eve creates the fox. His wife, Richeut, sly, tricky, covetous, is an appropriate partner for Renard; Ysengrin's wife. Hersent, fleet-footed and lecherous, is a fit partner for him.

Roques, Branche III, 3929 - 3962; Martin XXIV, 179 - 212.

Following the account of the creation of Renard and

Ysengrin, the poet explains how it came about that they could sp ea k .

King Balac had made the prophet Balaam promise to curse the Children of lisrael but God placed an angel armed with a glitter­ ing sword before the she-ass he was riding. In vain Balaam tried to get the ass to move by whipping and spurring her on. Finally the ass, with God's permission, begins to speak, explaining it is

God who prevented her from advancing. The moral drawn from this is that surely God could give the power of speech to other animals; he could even make a usurer open his purse to charity. 31

Roques, Branche III, 3963 - 4064; Martin XXIV, 213 - 314.

Attracted to Ysengrin's house by the aroma from three legs of ham. Renard is disappointed when he is offered a mess of kidney and spleen instead. He had expected better. Counter­ feiting his disappointment, he remarks that Ysengrin is running undue risk in hanging his hams from the roof in open view of his neighbors. Renard advises Ysengrin to hide the hams and then claim that they had been stolen so that he would not have to share them with anyone. Ysengrin scoffs; seeing them is not the same as tasting them and, in any case, he is not disposed to share them with anyone. Renard returns at night and steals the hams, gaining entry by cutting a hole in the roof. Next morning, while

Ysengrin laments over his lo ss, Renard congratulates him for following his advice.

Roques, Branche Ilia, 4065 - 445 8; Martin II, 23 - 468,

Renard enters the well-stocked farm of Constant Desnoues through a hole in the fence. The chickens scamper and Chantecleer comes to investigate. Pinte, layer of the largest eggs and wisest of fowls, tells Chantecleer of the intruder's entry. Chantecleer scoffs but he is less assured than he pretends. In spite of his resolve to remain awake, he nevertheless falls asleep and dreams that an unknown creature comes bearing a red fur coat, ornamented with white clasps, and forces him to put it on. He finds it dif­ ficult to push his head through the narrow opening. Chantecleer tells Pinte the dream. She interprets it for him: the creature is 32 the fox, the white clasps are his teeth, and the narrow opening his jaw into which Renard would place him before noon. Chante­ cleer disregards Pinte's advice, returns to his perch, and barely escapes Renard's lunge. Renard pretends to be alarmed at the fright of his first cousin and persuades him to sing with his eyes closed by appealing to his vanity. Renard unfavorably compares

Chantecleer's singing ability to that of his father, Chanteclin.

Piqued, Chantecleer closes his eyes to sing and is captured by

Renard. Chantecleer escapes by persuading Renard to gloat over his pursuers by replying "maugre vostre" in answer to their shout

"Renart I'en porte. " Both Chantecleer and Renard philosophize over the incident. Evil flattery, says Chantecleer, blinds the eyes of him who sleeps when he should be widest awake. Renard curses the tongue which speaks when it ought to be silent.

Roques, Branche Ilia, 4459 - 4592.

The Titmouse scornfully rejects Renard's request to exchange the kiss of peace. Renard pretends to be chagrined, especially since, under King Noble's declaration of universal peace, old animosities are to be forgotten.

The titmouse is still skeptical, even when Renard closes his eyes to receive the kiss of peace. She tests Renard. First she throws moss and leaves down on him at which he leaps, mistaking them for the bird.

Next, the Titmouse skips guardedly close to Renard's mouth; again he leaps. 33

Renard asks for a third chance on behalf of his God­ son whom he hears singing in the trees but the Titmouse turns an

"oroille sorde" to him.

Hunters and hounds approach and Renard flees, h is ta il carefully pulled between his legs to escape the teeth of the hounds. The Titmouse mocks "Isn't the peace sworn?" "Yes," says Renard, "sworn, but not published."

Roques, Branche Ilia, 4593 - 4654; Martin II, 601 - 664.

After leaving the Titmouse, Renard finds himself in the presence of one of those knaves who, through charity or service, gains favor to live the life of a monk; the poet means a lay brother, a type he refers to as little esteemed and one who hardly merits to be better esteemed. The lay brother holds two mastiffs on a leash and is about to unleash them when Renard bravely chal­ lenges him. He has, says Renard, no right to deprive him of his right to win a wager which he made with the m astiffs. The lay brother, a simple man, agrees with Renard and contents himself to await another opportunity to get at him.

Roques, Branche Ilia, 4655 - 4796; Martin II, 665 - 842.

Renard meets Tibert, the cat, who is playing with his own tail. Recognizing Renard by his tawny coat, Tibert gives him a prudent hello only to receive a gruff reply.

Noticing the nails in Tibert's paws. Renard judges it wise to be conciliatory. He enlists Tibert as an ally against 34

Ysengrin by promising him rich booty. They pledge faith to each other and ride off on their horses, in appearance the best of friends but in reality the worst of enemies .

Renard notices a snare fixed in an oak-stump and, incap­ able of resisting his natural instincts. Renard plans to catch

Tibert in the snare.

Renard tells Tibert to test his horsemanship by galloping in a straight line along the border of the wood. Tibert does so but glimpses the snare in the nick of time and swerves out of harm's way. Told by Renard to try again, again he sheers away from the snare.

Renard, sensing that his trick is discovered, claims that he had overestimated the nimbleness of Tibert's horsemanship.

Tibert promises to try a third time but is interrupted by hounds.

Renard, trying to escape into the woods, forgets the snare but Tibert, pretending to be equally afraid, throws himself on Renard who falls into the snare.

The villein who had set the snare approaches, raises a heavy axe, misses Renard but cuts the snare open. Renard e x c a p e s .

Roques, Branche Illb, II 4797 - 5138.

Weakened by hunger, Renard speaks convincingly to

Tibert, the cat, of faith and love and of people's reluctance to help each other in this evil century; Renard is sadly aware that in his weakened condition, he is no match for Tibert. 35 Tibert apologizes for leaving Renard in danger and they reconfirm their previous alliance against Ysengrin.

They find a sausage in a field; Renard carries it indeli­ cately—dragging it in the dust and wetting it with his saliva.

Tibert, fearing that he will be tricked out of his share, offers to carry the sausage. Renard agrees, scheming that it would be easy to overcome a burdened Tibert. Tibert, meanwhile, takes one end of the sausage in his mouth and tosses the rest over his back, telling Renard archly, "there is much value in a little distinction."

Tibert outdistances Renard, climbs to the top of a wooden corss atop a small hill, and tantalizes Renard with invitations to join him in eating the booty, knowing that Renard is unable to clim b.

Tibert refuses to throw Renard any portion of the sausage on the grounds that the sausage is a holy thing. To Renard's con­ tinued pleas, Tibert manufactures ostensibly valid reasons with religious overtones.

Renard swears on the cross to remain there for seven years in wait for Tibert's descent.

The hounds approach and Renard is forced to break his vow by beating a hasty retreat.

Tibert threatens to brand him a coward and perjurer before

Noble's court.

Renard escapes but swears terrible vengeance against

Tibert. 36

Roques, Branche IV, 5139 - 5296; Martin XV, 365 - 523.

Two priests, Rufangier and Turgis , on their way to a synodical meeting, glimpse Tibert atop the cross.

They quarrel over Tibert's hide even before catching him,

Rufrangier claiming that it would make an excellent coat and Torgis demanding his right to half the hide. Torgis surrenders his claim provided that Rufrangier would cover his expenses at the synod.

Rufrangier climbs on his saddle to seize Tibert. He is badly clawed and falls off his horse in a swoon.

Tibert mounts the horse which immediately heads for its stable, crossing the courtyard the moment when the priest's wife is chopping wood. Not seeing Rufrangier, she thinks that Tibert is the devil.

The priests themselves think that Tibert must have been the devil and strenuously cross themselves and repeat their credos.

They return home; to his wife's query, Rufrangier replies "The devil has bewitched us and had it not been for our prayers, he would have taken us away. "

Roques, Branche V, 5297 - 5390; Martin XX, 1 - 94.

Ysengrin sees two rams grazing in a field (Belin . and

Bemart); they had been deserted by the herders.

Belin courteously acknowledges their helplessness before the wolf but requests that he condescend to settle an argument over ownership of the field between them.

Ysengrin agrees. The rams suggest that the argument be decided by a race. 37

Ysengrin sends Belin and Bernard to the right and to the left of the field respectively and gives the signal to begin the race

(Saignor, movez:/ faites le mieuz que vous savez.) v. 5359 - 5360.

The two rams run toward Ysengrin whom they butt, leaving him half-dead. Ysengrin curses his fate, blaming it on the doings of the devil.

Roques, Branche VI, 5391 - 5550; Martin XXI, 1 - 160.

A villein finds a ham which had fallen off the wagon of two hermits. On discovering that the villein has found the ham,

Ysengrin demands a part of it. Patous, the bear, does likewise.

Patous suggests that he fetch the ham lest someone else come to claim his share. In the safety of the woods, they discuss how they should share the ham. The bear suggests that they leave it in the woods during the night and that when they return in the morning, they hold a contest to see who gets the ham—they will compare backsides "et cil qui graingnor cul avra/ le bacon tot en portera, " v . 5453 - 54.

The villein's wife takes his place next morning at the contest and easily wins the ham.

Roques, Branche VII, 5551 - 5703; Mrtin II, 844 - 1023.

Renard lies under a beech tree in a terrestrial paradise watered by a limpid stream; he is hungry.

Tiecelin, the crow, alights on the beech tree, bearing in her claws a fine cheese which she had just stolen from an old 38

lady. A morsel drops to the ground near the fox.

Tiecelin's vanity makes him vulnerable and Renard

launches into a flattering eulogy, recalling Tiecelin's father,

Rohant, the best singer in all France, and inviting Tiecelin to sing.

Tiecelin obliges but Renard encourages him to try harder until

Tiecelin drops his cheese.

But Renard aims for bigger game. He therefore pretends that he finds the smell of cheese unbearable and invites Tiecelin to

remove this abomination from near him.

Tiecelin cautiously approaches; Renard, impatient, lunges at him but only succeeds in capturing three or four feathers.

Tiecelin sees the danger of his follishness and leaves the cheese to Renard, ignoring all his blandishments.

Roques, Branche Vila, 5703 - 6067; Martin II, 1024 - 1390.

Renard thoughtlessly enters Ysengrin's den. By chance, i Ysengrin is away and the den is occupied by Hersent and her four

c u b s .

Hersent recognizes Renard and instead of being angry at

his indiscreet entrance, she gives him a friendly kiss and re­

proaches him for the infrequency of his visits .

Renard congratulates her on her recent delivery and

blames the infrequency of his visits on the jealousy of her hus­

band. Hersent declares her willingness to receive Renard as

often as she wants . 39

Renard, however, is afraid of Ysengrin's untimely arrival but before he leaves, he gluts himself on Ysengrin’s provisions, soils what he cannot eat, beats and urinates on the cubs, and insults them by calling them bastards and offsprings of a cuckold.

Hersent begs in vain that her children not breate a word of the incident to Ysengrin. Ysengrin, on his return, is angy at being cuckolded but soon becomes convinced of his wife's inno­ cence which she swears to attest to either in a trial or in a test by fire or by hanging.

Roques, Branche Vila, 5703 - 6067; Martin II, 1024 - 1390.

Ysengrin and Hersent track Renard and in less than a week, find him foraging for food in a garden. They give chase.

Renard gives Ysengrin the slip, slows down when he sees Hersent still following him, and quickly dives into his den.

Hersent tries to follow but becomes stuck in the entrance. Renard leaves by another entrance, discovers her thus caught, and leis­ urely violates her.

Ysengrin arrives to catch Hersent in flagrante. Renard insists on his innocence, claiming that he was trying to release

Hersent and offering to take an oath to attest his innocence.

Ysengrin refuses to distrust the witness of his own eyes.

Renard reenters his den leaving Ysengrin to extricate

Hersent who pollutes him (Ysengrin) from above. Finally he res­ cues her and belabours her both with his fist and tongue. She admits to having been raped but since what is done cannot be undone. 40 their only recourse is to seek redress in Noble's court. Ysengrin agrees after apologizing.

Roques, Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin Va, 258 - 1143.

Hersent and Ysengrin go to Noble's court to obtain re­ dress. All the barons are assembled. Ysengrin denounces Renard and Hersent, blushing, supports his testimony. Hersent claims that Renard had pursued her for a long time and had finally got his way when she was helplessly caught in the entrance to his lair.

Noble is reluctant to pass on a case involving love.

Adultery, he says, is not to be judged by the court. Extra-marital love is justified by the courtly code. But since justice should always be done, he asks the Papal Legate, Musart, the camel, to advise them out of his considerable legal knowledge.

The camel advises that the prince's first duty is to en­ force respect for law without other consideration.

To conform to feudal practice. Noble submits the thorny case to his barons, charging the most valiant of them to judge whether Renard should be punished for an act prompted by love.

Baucent, the bear, finds that a wife's testimony is biased and therefore insufficient as a basis for condemning Renard. Plateau, the deer, supported by Brun, the bear, sustains the wolf's right to redress. Baucent and Cointreau, the monkey, observe that the law prohibits the presumption of guilt without trial. Brichemer, the stag, ends debate by suggesting a conciliatory plan. Renard is to appear in court to arrive at an accord with Ysengrin by taking 41 an oath. Roenel, the dog, is appointed judge.

Grimbert, the badger is charged with bringing Renard to court. In the interim, Ysengrin suborns the judge. They plan that Roenel will feign death and v;hen Renard approaches to take the oath on his teeth, Roenel will devour him. In addition, he

plans to place forty mastiffs strategically around so that they could

lay hold of Renard. Ysengrin, savouring vengenance, masses his

supporters on a plain. Renard, likewise, masses his supporters, all those who share the bonds of natural kinship, on a hill.

Renard arrives to swear on the relics (Roenel's teeth). By

Roenel's moving flanks and the evidence of his breathing. Renard

realizes that Roenel is not dead. Renard complains that no one

should be made to take an oath on an empty stomach. He adds that Frobert, the rich man from Noes, has been fattening three

geese for seven months. He claims that he knows of an even

greater booty—a pantry well-stocked with honey. Both Brun and

Tibert are eager to go, promising to return quickly.

They proceed to Frobert's pantry, a window of which has

been left open. B run and Tibert enter through the window and start

stuffing themselves. Renard quickly closes the window, imprison­

ing Tibert and Brun in the house. Frobert and other peasants arrive

with sickles and other implements and almost kill them.

Renard thinks it a good time to steal a goose but is chased.

Meanwhile,Tibert, trying to escape, loses his tail.

Tibert and Bruns are mocked by Renard and return to

Brichemer at the place of the oath-swearing. 42

Roques, Branche VIII, 7279 - 8790; Martin VI, 1 - 1534.

Noble's subjects have gathered for the annual festivities at his court. Everyone is there, except Renard who arrives in the midst of the festivities, encouraged by Grimbert who advises that fortune favors the brave. Renard prostrates himself humbly before Noble's feet but Noble still remembers Renard's misdeeds and his enemies denounce him. To these accusations. Renard replies that he is attacked by them because ingratitude and envy rule the world; his most magnanimous actions have caused his greatest misfortunes. But Renard's victims successively recall his trickery and Renard, in spite of the weight of evidence against him, attempts to justify himself by challenging Ysengrin to single combat, and thus exonerate himself from the calumnies of his enemies. The battle takes place according to medieval protocol after all attempts at accommodation between the combatants have failed. Ysengrin wins and Renard is left for dead on the field.

Ysengrin's friends rejoice at his victory; Renard's friends are ashamed. Noble commands that Renard be hung. Renard, to gain time, asks for a confessor, Belin confesses him and while this is being done, Grimbert arrives with Brother Bernard of Grandmont, a respected priest, who convinces Noble to give Renard over to him so that he could have him ordained a monk for the edification of all. God does not require the sinner's death, he reminds Noble.

But even in the convent. Renard cannot overcome his nature. His principal study is how to trick the monks by his hypocrisy. He is bored with fasting, with vigil-keeping, and 43 with keeping the canonical hours. One day, after hearing mass with his usual show of rapt devotion, he notices four plump capons which had been given the convent by a peasant. Remark­ ing on the hypocrisy of those who make vows of abstinence but do not keep them. Renard returns that night to where the capons are, strangles them, and eats one of them. It is soon discovered that Renard has committed several other misdeed while in the convent. He is denounced and returns to Maupertuis where his wife and children welcome him gladly.

Roques, Branche IX, 8791 - 9252; Martin VIII, 1 - 468.

In his retreat, Maupertuis, Renard repents his past misdeeds, but his repentance is partly prudential for he realizes that he is neither as fast nor as strong as he used to be. In this ambivalent state of soul. Renard sees a peasant and, after prudently disover- ing that the peasant has no dogs with him, he tells him that he wishes to renounce the past evils of his life. After assuring the cautious peasant that he has no intentions against him. Renard is taken to a hermit but the hermit, overcoming his initial sur­ prise at seeing Renard and after hearing the deluge of his sins, advises Renard that only the Pope can absolve him. Donning the garments of a pilgrim. Renard leaves on his pilgrimage. He meets

Belin, the ram, who complains of the ingratitude of his master.

After fathering so many lambs for him, he is about to slaughter him and to use his skin to make boots for the feet of a pilgrim to make 44 his pilgrimage to Rome. Renard convinces Belin to take his skin

intact to Rome. Belin agrees.

They next meet Bernard, the ass, who wants to escape

his personal problems and who, on Renard's assurance that he will get much to eat, willingly decides to follow them.

They enter a large wooded area where they fail to secure

any provision. Belin and Bernard begin to worry about where they

should lodge; they reject Renard's suggestion that they sleep

under a tree, for Belin argues that three to four wolves can easily

attack them. Renard leads them to the home of Primaut which is

well stocked with supplies.

After feasting and drinking, they break into song.

Ysengrin and Hersent approach carefully on hearing the noise;

Hersent peeps into the house and sees the three happy occupants.

Ysengrin demands that they admit him. Belin and Bernard are

frightened but Renard suggests a plan to get them out of their

predicament. He instructs Bernard to open the door a crack,

large enough to admit Ysengrin's head and then closes the door

sharply on his head. Ysengrin is trapped; Belin butts him so that

he becomes scatter-brained.

Hersent runs for reinforcement; she assembles more than

one hundred wolves and leads them to the house but the three

pilgrims have already fled. They give chase. Renard urges his

companions on and finally tells them that their only hope lies in climbing a tree. Belin and Bernard, at first doubting their ability 45 to climb a tree, soon discover that fear leads to the discovery of undreamed of talents,

The wolves, having lost the scent and overcome with fatigue, lie down under the tree. Belin and Bernard, in attempt­ ing to change places, lose their balance and fall, crushing six wolves. The rest of the pack scatter in all directions.

The erstwhile pilgrims have by now lost their enthusiasm for the pilgrimage; Renard rationalizes by observing that many an honest man has never gone on a pilgrimage while some pilgrims have returned worse than when they left. He resolves to live by his labor and to give to the poor.

Roques, Branche X, 9253 - 11472; Martin IX, 1 - 2212.

Lie tard, a rich villein, exasperated with the ploughing of his team of eight oxen, threatens to give his finest ox, Rognel, to the bear. The bear. Brun, overhears Lietard and taking his threat as a promise, demands that Lietard honor it. Disconcerted

by this turn of events, Lietard asks that Brun give him a respite

of twenty-four hours. Brun is reluctant, recalling a previous

experience with another villein who had taken advantage of his

magnanimity. Besides, he had leamt from Renard that possessions

are better than promises. Lietard, however, convinces Brun that

he belongs to the category of those men who do not lie. Lietard

regrets the potential loss of his ox; even more, he regrets that

he will lose face before his neighbors. Renard approaches and 46 offers to help, proudly enumerating his credentials as a trickster.

Initially reluctant, Lietard finally accepts Renard's help. Lietard,

in exchange for the saving of his ox and also for the bear meat which Renard assures him he will get, promises to give Renard

Blanchard, the cock. Renard advises that the next day when

Brun comes, lietard should arm himself with an axe under his

coat. Renard will blow a hunting horn and Brun, fearing that

Count Tibaut is out hunting venison for Pentecost, will ask Lietard to hide him. Lietard will then have the chance to kill him; in this way he will have both meat and fur. Lietard thanks Renard. The

next day, matters proceed as Renard had planned. Brun is killed

and Lietard, not wanting to share his meat with his neighbors,

covers up the carcass carefully. He tells his wife, Brunmatin,

who advises that they return that night with a cart and fetch the

carcass home.

Lietard, his wife, his daughter Constance, and their

valet surreptitiously leave at midnight to collect the body of Brun.

The next day Renard sets out to claim his prize but Lietard has

second thoughts. He consults Brunmatin who advises him to have

three of his fiercest mastiffs tied behind the barn when Renard

arrives and to put him at ease by offering plumper hens. Renard

arrives and demands his prize. Lietard, following his wife's

advice, tells Renard that Blanchard is all skin and bones and is

so old that she will break his teeth. Renard should wait for two

weeks while he fattens her. Renard rants and raves and threatens 47

Lietard with the most unspeakable menaces but Lietard, secure in the knowledge of the three waiting mastiffs, is uncowed. He orders that the mastiffs be released and Renard barely escapes, losing his tail. He returns to Maupertuis. Renard, philosophiz­ ing to his wife on receiving more grief for a single good deed that for all the evil he has done, forswears all good deeds. He swears revenge on Lietard. After recuperating for a week, he finds Lietard and steals his harness. Lietard realizes that he will have to pay a great price for tricking Renard. He will have no respite from him, night or day. His donkey, Tiemers, promises to bring Renard and his wife bound with the stolen harness if Lietard will give him a measure of barley. Lietard promises.

Tiemers pretends death before the door of Maupertuis.

Hermelinq Renard's wife, sees him and, happy at the promise of meat, calls for Lietard's harness to drag Tiemers inside. Renard is suspicious and tells her to bite Tiemers to certify that he is dead. Tiemers does not budge. They bind him but Renard has seen Tiemers open his eyes and gets Hermeline to untie him.

Hermeline accuses him of cowardice and tries alone to drag the donkey. Tiemers takes off with Hermeline and brings her to

Lietard.

Lietard, in his rush to cut off Hermeline's head, m isses, and instead cuts off Tiemer's thigh, thus releasing Hermeline. She runs home, dragging the thigh behind her. 48

The next day, Renard threatens Lietard to report him to the court for poaching. Lietard, frightened, undertakes to kill the three mastiffs, to give Renard his cock and hens, and to be his serf. Thus Renard, triumphant, fattens himself at the expense of Lietard. Soon he decimates the poultry population of Lietard.

Roques, Branche XI, 11473 - 12932; Martin XII, 1 - 1486

Driven out of his stronghold by the hunger of his new­ born cubs, Renard goes out to hunt but is chased by the Abbe

Huon's hounds. At noon, he meets Tibert, the cat, who mocking­ ly reminds him that his hunger merely follows the good practice of pennance and fasting. Renard invites Tibert to accompany him to the farm of Guillaume Bacon, Lord of Mo lay. On the way, they meet Bacon and his hounds. Renard runs across the fields; Tibert climbs a tree. The hunters and hounds arrive and the hunters begin throwing objects at Tibert. A priest arrives on horseback, his saddle packed with books - one of those who paid no attention to literature, outside the narrow interests of their mass books.

Tibert berates him for preferring the hunt to the spiritual quest.

The priest covets Tibert's coat and throws a stick at him, hitting him. Tibert jumps on the priest's horse and flees with his books.

He meets Renard and they both go to the church at

Blagny to say the Vespers which the priest had missed. They parody the office of Vespers and after this, argue over the division of the priest's possessions. 49

Renard then reminds T ibert that they have failed to ring the bell. He has noticed that it cannot be rung from the ground and cleverly suggests that he ring it first. When Tibert tries to ring the bell, he becomes entangled in the ropes; Renard removes the bench from beneath hi s feet and leaves him to the blows of the peasants who come to the church, attracted by the ringing of the bell. Tibert is badly beaten and escapes after the rope is accidentally cut by a blow intended for him.

Roques, Branche XII, 12933 - 13444; Martin III, 1 - 510.

It is winter. Renard's larder is empty and he seeks to replenish it. He leaves Maupertuis and soon sees some mer­ chants coming from the sea with their fish. The fishing had been excellent since the north wind had been blowing all week and their baskets are loaded with herrings as well as eels and lampreys.

Renard soon schemes to unburden them of some of their load.

He lies in the middle of their path, feigning death. The

merchants survey him carefully, remarking on the fine price he

will bring them. They certify that he is dead and after evaluating

his pelt as worth at least five sous, they throw him on the top of the cart and continue their journey. Renard, meanwhile, is busy

among the baskets. He empties one basket of the choicest her­

rings and after eating his fill, impales several eels on a stake to

take home. That done, he stealthily leaves the cart and returns

home, but not before mocking the merchants. Home, his wife 50 and children roast the catch. Ysengrin, returning from a fruitless day of hunting, sees the smoke rising from Renard's chimney and smells the strange odour of cooking. He peeps through the window and is delighted by what he sees. He calls Renard, pre­ tending to be the bearer of good news. Renard pretends that his stronghold is now the abbey of Tyron and that the brothers have paid him the honor of receiving him into their order and that the rules of the order prohibit entrance to anyone but beggars and other brothers. They only eat fish and cheese since they have renounced all works of the flesh. On request. Renard gives

Ysengrin a piece of perfectly grilled fish, bringing it with the compliments of the brothers who wish that Ysengrin will soon be one of them. At the first taste, Ysengrin is convinved that he is near conversion. On the promise that after conversion, he can get as much fish as he wants, Ysengrin consents to be tonsured.

Renard instructs him to place his head through a side window;

Renard overturns a pot of boiling water on it. Ysengrin loudly complains but Renard convinces him thathis tonsure is the correct size and that the rules of the order specify that he spend his first night in pious vigil.

Speaking of the gentle and edifying life of the monks,

Renard leads Ysengrin to the edge of a fish-pond. It was before

Christmas, the time when the bacon is salted. Ice covered the pond but there was a single hole where the peasants vvatered their beasts . They had left the pail with which they drew water. Renard 51 tells Ysengrin that to catch eels, he has to stand quietly, the pail attached to his tail and lowered in the water. The water soon freezes, fixing Ysengrin's tail. Convinced that he has a marvel­ lous catch, Ysengrin patiently waits. When he finally tries to move, he cannot. He calls to Renard who accuses him of gluttony.

At dawn. Constant des Granges, an honest vassal, sets out for the hunt. They see Ysengrin and attack him. He defends himself well; he throws Constant who misses his aim and cuts off Ysen­ grin's tail. Ysengrin leaves, lamenting his elegant tail but swearing vengeance on Renard.

Roques, Branche XIII, 13445 - 14166; Martin XXII, 1 - 722.

Ysengrin, Chantecleer, and Brichemer prepare a field for planting; Renard does not work; he sleeps, while pretending to stand guard. They disagree over what to plant: Chantecleer

suggests that they plant hemp because the seeds can be eaten and the cloth made from it can provide money. Brichemer sug­ gests barley. Ysengrin, foreseeing that he could hunt at leisure in the field when the wheat is ripe, settles the dispute by sug­

gesting that they plant wheat. Renard agrees. They plant wheat

and Renard guaranttes that they will share equally in the harvest.

It is June; the wheat is almost ripe. Ysengrin, without warning his friends, hunts and eats the game in the field and

glutted, falls asleep in the wheat-fieId. Brichemer accuses

Ysengrin of trampling the wheat. Ysengrin asks Brichemer for a

cure for dropsy; Brichemer suggests fasting. Ysengrin proposes 52 to Brichemer that he eat his portion of the field. He does so and afterwards falls asleep. Chantecleer arrives and berates them for damaging the wheat. He is assauged when told that he can have his share. He eats and the three now sleep. Renard arrives and violently quarrels with them for eating the wheat which he had planned to live on during the winter. Renard challenges them to accompany him to the court of King Connin who will judge the d isp u te .

They arrive at the gate to King Connin's castle; Renard enters, the others remain outside. Connin holds a spade in his hands which, he says, he uses to make vaginas and he produces his latest masterpiece. Renard finds its immense size horrible and suggests that the skin from the neck of a stag be placed over the opening. Connin has no stags; Renard produces Brichemer whose skin is removed and properly glued into place on the vagina.

Renard also suggests that the rooster's comb and the wolf's pelt be added to Connin's masterpeice. Thus Renard avenges himself on his erstwhile friends and is praised by the King for his advice.

Roques, Branche XIV, 14167 - 14842; Martin VII, 1 - 844.

A sententious introduction philosophizes on the incon­ sistency of fortune.

Tele est manier de Fortune; l'un met amor, l'autre rancune, l'un met des us, l'autre desouz; ele n'est pas conmune a toz (14175 - 14178). 53

Renard's limitless amorality is contrasted with moralistic preten­ tions in the introduction. Renard undoes the latch to a henhouse

stocked with the plumpest hens. He seizes the most marketable

chickens and devours them without ceremony, savouring both the

chickens and the trick he is playing on the "simons " in the abbey

(pejorative reference to priests). Unfortunately, one of the "simons"

gets up to relieve himself, hears the fox gnawing on the bones, .

bolts the door to the hen house, and thoroughly beats Renard.

Renard escapes to the River Oise where he finds a hay­

stack floating. Before going to sleep, he gives thanks on seven

counts (including Hersent). He concludes his prayer in a hymn

of praise to rascals. Having thus cleansed his soul, he falls

asleep only to discover when he awakes that the river had swollen

during the night and the haystack was afloat in midstream. Renard

doubts that he can escape and calls Hubert, the hawk, to hear

his confession. After delivering a sermon, Hubert announces

himself ready to hear Renard's confession. Renard's list of sins

is appropriately long: perjury, excommunication, heresy, sodomy,

fornication,adultery, and, as a measure of his carnality, he admits

to being more lecherous than monks and priests. He defends his

adultery with Hersent on the grounds that it represented "l'ordre

bone et be le/ qu'est de malle et de fumele" (14595 - 14596).

Hubert severely reproaches Renard for his rape of Hersent, sug­

gesting that Belin's wife was much more gracious and delectable.

Renard is angry at the insult to Hersent and plans to avenge the 54 insult. He embellishes his confession to entice the hawk to come closer. He enlarges on his concupiscence and even confesses to eating the hawk's children. He pretends to faint and when Hubert ap p roach es, springs at him but fails. But Hubert is indefatigably good and encourages Renard to continue his confession. Renard confesses that he has eaten the four sons of Hubert; Hubert roundly curses him but Renard, penitent, promises to be his liege-man. Hubert's goodness becomes gullibility when he in­ vites Renard to receive the kiss of good faith. Renard makes a meal of him. Concluding couplet:

certes ci a mal pecheor qui a mengie son sonfessor (14841 - 42)

Roques, Branche XV, 14843 - 14980; Martin XVIII, 1 - 138.

This branche continues the anti-clerical satire character­ istic of much of the Roman de Renard. Father Martin is an old priest, a member of the lower clergy. He is ignorant, more learned in salting pork than in reading books:

dant Martin: vie Harz estoit augues li prestres, ne fu onques de lestre mestre, plus saVO it de truie enfondue que de lestre deporveue. (14848 - 41852

Concerned about the prospect of a visit from Ysengrin, he decides to set a trap by digging a pit, cammouflages it well with a net, and suspends a sheep over it as bait. Ysengrin, after a fruitless night of hunting, joyously sees the sheep and goes after it. He falls into the pit and reproaches himself for allowing greed to 55 blind his judgment. The priest gets up early to investigate his wolf trap. Seeing Ysengrin, he strikes at him with a club but

Ysengrin pulls him into the pit and escapes by climbing out of the pit on his shoulders. Thereafter, a new enthusiasm is discern­ ible in Father Martin's m asses.

Roques, Branche XVI, 14981 - 15070; Martin XIX, 1 - 90.

Ysengrin, concluding that he would fare better if he had a companion, ( fous est li hom et li leu s/ qui onques va nu le part seus/ pus qu'il puist avoir compaignie) 14985 - 14987, meets

Rainsent, the mare, and suggests that they form a team. He tells her that the peasant for whom she works victimizes her; he can promise a life free from pulling carts and carrying loads. He can offer her a life free from care. Rainsent suggests that she would be a much better ally if Ysengrin would remove the thorn stuck in her right foot. If he removed it, she would remain with him for­ ever. Rainsent extends her foot as Ysengrin approaches to remove the thorn and kicks him squarely between chest and snout.

Ysengrin laments the evil days on which he has fallen.

Roques, Branche XVII, 15071 - 15468; Martin Branche V, 21 - 246 and Va, 247 - 263

Resting peacefully in his stronghold. Renard dreams that he is dressed in a coat of red fustian, tom in several places and bordered about the neck by a completely white trimming. The border, difficult to put on, encloses his neck so tightly that it 56 almost strangles him. Renard awakes with a bound and asks his wife the meaning of the dream. She confesses her apprehension that the dream augurs worry and grief for him and gives him a charm whose virtue would protect him. He is to trace three crosses on the threshold of the door or window of the place he is le a v in g .

Renard leaves to hunt. He comes on a crow preening itself in a stream. He lies motionless, his eyes closed, tongue extended, hoping that the crow would light on him. It does and is captured by the now animated corpse.

Next Renard meets Ysengrin who ignores his courteous greeting and instead ironically promises to put him in a safe place where he need no longer fear king or prince or lord. Ysen­ grin confesses he is anxious to join the trickery of Renard with his own generosity. Saying this, Ysengrin bites Renard and mauls him but even for Ysengrin, Renard's skin is far from a delicate morsel. Ysengrin expresses his uncertainty as to what kind of death he should give Renard: should he eat him; should he grill him under a blazing fire? But seeing Renard gasping, awaiting the moment of his last breath, he repents his severity and is torn by remorse. They see a peasant lugging a huge ham and Renard undertakes to capture the ham for Ysengrin. His natural agility hampered by the painfulness of his wounds, he drags himself until he passes the peasant and then stretches out on the path. The peasant sees him and calculates that his pelt 57 is worth at least the cost of the ham without counting the soft fur of the neck which he would keep to embroider his own coat.

But Renard lures the peasant by jumping aside when he approaches.

Finally, the peasant puts down his ham and gives chase. Ysen­ grin takes the precious cargo and eats it, hiding the remainder under leaves. When Renard returns, he gives him the string which had tied the ham.

Swearing vengeance but restrained by prudence, Renard leaves to be absolved of his sins by going on a pilgrimage to

St. Jacques.

Disguised as a pilgrim. Renard penetrates the courtyard of a priest, in search of food. He hears Frobert, the cricket, gaily singing in an oven. Renard invites Frobert to sing him a psalter but Frobert is not deceived by his false devotion and es­ capes his attack. Renard asks Frobert to confess him; Frobert tells him that the priest will soon arrive. The hunters and hounds arrive and Renard hides in the oven. The hounds pick up Ysengrin's scent and maul him to Renard's satisfaction.

Roques, Branche XVIII, 15469 - 16194; Martin XVI, 1 - 720.

Driven out of his stronghold by a depleted larder and by the hunger of his recently delivered w ife. Renard roams through his favorite haunts in search of prey. It is the month of May, the time of Spring, and he enters a huge field, an earthly paradise watered by springs and covered with flowers. But the greenest 58 fields and most fragrant flowers cannot satisfy hunger and Renard . leaves for the farm of Berton, a villein who is so greedy and miserly that he would prefer to pluck his moustache to plucking one of his capons for his table; each week he sends some of them to market; never does any of them run the risk of savoring his pot.

Renard has completely different ideas on the proper use of capons and he feverishly reconnoitres the enclosure until he finds a hole in the hedge. This he penetrates and awaits his opportunity to catch Noiret, a fine rooster who struts and swaggers around his hens. Renard lounges but misses and the hens set up such a cackle that Berton comes out to investigate. He sees Renard and, armed with nets, catches him. To begin rendering justice to the hated Renard, Berton lifts his foot to place it on Renard's throat but Renard seizes his heel in such a vicious bite that his teeth protrudes. Berton's anguish is increased when Renard also catches hold of his right hand. In abject submission, Berton undertakes to be Renard's slave, to be his liege-man, to supply all his needs, even to surrender his wife to him. Renard agrees to release him on condition that he take the oath of homage; Berton does so.

Renard, when released from the net, demands that he be given

Noiret. Berton is reluctant; he claims that Noiret is tough and

leathery and that he is more than two years old. He offers to give him three tender hens whose flesh and bones would be much more

succulent. Renard insists and Berton reluctantly delivers Noiret.

Renard takes the road back to Ma upertuis with Noiret firmly 59 between his teeth. Noiret meanwhile complains of the ingratitude of his master but Renard argues that the lord has a right to dispose

of his serf. It is the duty of the master to command, of the serf to obey. Noiret says that if he would die in the best tradition of the good servant in giving his life for his lord, he would like

nothing better than to be serenaded on his way to paradise by a

song from Renard. Noiret escapes as Renard launches into his

song. He quotes a proverb of Cato: to eat well, sing little.

Roques, Branche XVIII, 16195 - 16980; Martin XVI, 721 - 1506.

Renard meets King Noble and Ysengrin who are out walk­

ing amiably. Noble is amused for he remembers the enmity be­

tween Renard and Ysengrin but he nevertheless invites him to go

hunting. Renard demurs because of Ysengrin's hatred for him but

Noble insists that they drop the old enmity and be reconciled.

Ysengrin agrees and they exchange the kiss of friendship. The

poet says ominously "c'est la pes Renart," 16320. The three set

out on the hunt, with Renard as guide since he knows the likeliest

spots. Ysengrin suggests that Renard be sent to scout the land

to see if there are any hounds or villeins . Noble agrees. Renard

arrives at the place where the villein who watches the cattle

soundly sleeps under a tree. He quickly climbs the tree without

disturbing the villein and, hidden in the dense foliage, defecates

on him. The villein wakes with a start; overpowered by the odour

and thinking it must be the devil, he rushes to a stream to wash

himself. Renard jumps on his stooped shoulders and throws him 60 into the water and then pummels and pelts him with rocks until the villein sinks into the mud of the ditch.

Meanwhile Ysengrin and Noble are angy at what they believe is another of Renard's tricks. Renard appeases Noble by telling him of his exploits with the herder and suggests to the dis­ believing Ysengrin that he can verify the accuracy of his story by joining the villein at the bottom of the pond.

Noble invites Ysengrin to divide the cattle between them.

Ysengrin gives the bull and the heifer to Noble, keeps the cow for himself, and suggests that Renard seek other pastures for his meal. Noble, indignant, swipes at Ysengrin's head with such force that he breaks open the skin and leaves the head covered with blood.

Noble next invites Renard to share the spoils. Renard, wiser, suggests that Noble take what he wants and leave the rest.

Noble insists that Renard divide the prey. Renard next suggests that Noble take the bull, the Queen take the heifer, and the prince the cow. Noble, visibly pleased, compliments Renard on his ability to share. Renard replies that Ysengrin's red crown quickly taught him how to share correctly. Noble leaves, giving them freedom to hunt in his woods. Renard suggests to Ysengrin that they plot how best to be avenged on Noble.

Roques, Branche XIX, 16981 - 18176; Martin X, 1 - 1112.

Noble's court is assembled and all the barons are present, except Renard. He refuses repeated commands to be present and 61

Noble finally convenes his court and directs the nobles to decide what should be done to Renard. Ysengrin suggests that Renard's

land be confiscated and he be imprisoned. Tibert, who hates

Ysengrin more than he hates Renard, suggests that one of the

peers be sent to summon Renard to court. If he refuses, he can

be punished. Roonel, the mastiff, is dispatched to summon

Renard who agrees to go with him immediately. On the way. Renard

sees a trap set under vines; he dismounts and pretends to pray

before the newly discovered relic. The trap is baited with cheese

and Roonel, his curiosity aroused, dismounts and sees the cheese;

he seizes it and springs the trap. He is suspended by his neck

high in the air. Renard deserts him, the peasants arrive and beat

him, leaving him half dead.

The king sends Brichemer, the stag, next. Renard leads

him near to an isolated farm where they are attacked by three

mastiffs. Renard escapes; Brichemer is mauled.

Roques, Branche, XK, 18177 - 18874; Martin X, 1113 - 1723.

Made ill by Renard's treachery. Noble is at the point of

death. G rim be rt, Renard's cousin, remembers Renard's wisdom

and goes in search of him in the hope that he can reach an agree­

ment with the king. Renard promises to appear at court the follow­

ing day. Renard sets out early the next day and comes on a pilgrim

sleeping under a tree, his purse resting near him containing

Aliboron, a herb noted for curing fevers. Renard dons the pilgrim's

cape and cowl and sets out for Noble's castle. Renard claims that 62 he has traversed Rome and Salerno In search of a cure for the king and he brings a miraculous medicine given him by a wise man in

Salerno. Roonel, the mastiff, doubts that Renard had travelled overseas for Renard had been responsible for his capture in the trap. Tibert, the cat, comes to Renard's aid by claiming that

Hermeline, Renard's wife, had indeed told him that Renard had gone to Salerno in search of a healing ointment for the King.

Renard proceeds with the healing. He takes a sample of Noble's urine and claims that he can see that Noble has a very high fever.

The King agrees to give Renard whatever he requests to rid him of his sickness. Renard first requests the skin of a wolf, to Ysen­ grin's chagrin. Poor Ysengrin is skinned. Next he requests the antlers of a stag; Brichemer loses his antlers. Last, he requests a cat's hide but Tibert is much too swift for them. Renard takes the wolf's skin and wraps Noble in it then he gives him the herbs to drink. Noble is cured and he sends Renard home with an escort

of one hundred knights. Thus Renard avenges himself on his

enemies, receives the King's pardon, and returns home. CHAPTER II

TYPE-INDEX OF THE ROMAN DE RENARD

1+ THE FOX STEALS THE BASKET. The rabbit plays d ead.

The girl lays her basket down to pick up the rabbit.

The fox steals the basket.

RR, Roques Branche XVH, 15 071 - 15468; Martin V,

21 - 246 and Va, 247 - 263

Renard plays dead along the path followed by a

villein carrying a ham. The villein attempts to pick up

Renard who successively jumps out of his reach. The

villein puts down his ham for greater freedom of move­

ment. Ysengrin, the wolf, steals the ham.

2 THE TAIL-FISHER. The wolf is persuaded to fish with

his tail through a hole in the ice. His tail freezes.

When he is attacked and tries to escape, he loses his

ta il.

RR, Roques Branche XII, 12933 - 13444; Martin III

1-510.

After receiving his tonsure by scalding from Renard,

Ysengrin is told that he must spend the night in pious 63 64

vigil. Renard takes him to a hole in the ice where the

villeins water their cattle. A bucket is attached to

Ysengrin's tail and the tail is lowered into the icy water.

Ysengrin, thinking that he will catch fish, allows his

tail to remain. It freezes, holding him fast. The villeins

arrive and beat him; he escapes after losing his tail.

6 ANIMAL CAPTOR PERSUADED TO TALK AND RELEASES

VICTIM FROM HIS MOUTH. U su a lly Cock and Fox.

1. _RR, Roques Branche Ilia, 4065 - 1458; Martin II,

23 - 468.

The Cock, caught by Renard, persuades him to

defy his pursuers; cock escapes.

2. RR, Roques Branche XVIII, 15469 - 16194; Martin XVI,

1 - 720.

Noiret, the rooster, persuades Renard to serenade

him on his way to paradise. Renard opens his mouth to

grant the request; Noiret escapes.

31 THE WOLF CUMBS FROM THE PIT ON THE PRIEST'S BACK.

RR, Roques Branche XV, 14843 - 14980; Martin XVII,

1 - 138. Ysengrin, caught in the trap set by Father Martin, pulls Martin into the trap and climbs out on his back. 65

32 THE WOLF DESCENDS INTO THE WELL IN ONE BUCKET

AND RESCUES THE FOX IN THE OTHER.

RR, Roques, Branche II, 3257 - 3732; Martin IV, 1 - 478.

Thinking the reflection in the well belongs to his

wife and fooled into thinking that the bottom of the well

is paradise, a place abounding in provisions, Ysengrin

descends in one bucket and thus unwittingly rescues

Renard who had been caught in the w ell.

35A THE FOX ASKS TFIE WOLF FOR MEAT BUT GETS NOTHING.

In the evening the Fox breaks into the Wolf's house and

steals the meat.

RR, Roques Branche III, 3963 - 4064; Martin XXIV,

213 - 314.

Renard,attracted to Ysengrin's house by the aroma

of the hams suspended from the roof, is disappointed at

not receiving any. After advising Ysengrin to hide the

hams from his neighbors and to raise a hue and cry,

pretending that they had been stolen. Renard returns at

night and steals the hams. The next morning, he finds

Ysengrin weeping over the theft of his hams and congrat­

ulates him for taking his advice. See Motif K331. 66

36 THE FOX IN DISGUISE VIOLATES TFIE SHE-BEAR. The s h e -

bear is caught in a tree-cleft or hole in the hedge. To

avoid later recognition the fox covers himself with soot

and is taken for the pastor. Variant: the hare, the she-

fo x .

1. RR, Roques Branche I, 1679 - 2260; Martin I, 1619 -

2202.

Under cover of darkness , Renard sneaks out of his

besieged castle, ties the sleeping guards to trees, and

proceeds to violate the Queen. She, thinking it is her

husband, submits but when she dissevers it is Renard,

screa m s.

2. j^, Roques Branche Vila, 5 703 - 6067; Martin II,

1024 - 1390.

Hersent, Ysengrin's wife, attempts to follow the

fleeing Renard into his warren but sticks fast in the narrow

entrance. He leaves by another opening and violates her.

38 CLAW IN SPLIT THREE. The fox persuades the bear to

stick his claw in the cleft of a split tree.

RR, Roques Branche I, 492 - 744; Martin I, 474 - 728.

Promising Brun, the bear, a good supply of honey.

Renard takes him to an oak tree which the forester,

Lanfroi, had split, leaving two wedges in the cleft. 67

Renard instructs Brun to place his head in the cleft;

he does so. Renard removes the wedges and Brun is

caught in an ugly embrace.

40A WOLF FIAS TAIL ATTACFIED TO BELL. Rings alarm.

RR, Roques Branche XI, 11473 - 12932; Martin XII,

1 - 1486.

Renard and Tibert, dressed in priestly garb, parody

. irreverently the office of Vespers. Renard reminds Tibert

that they should ring the bell. Renard rings first, noticing

that the rope is much too high for Tibert. When Tibert

rings the bell. Renard removes the stool beneath his feet

and entangles him in the bell rope. The villagers arrive

and beat Tibert.

47B THE HORSE KICKS THE WOLF IN THE TEETH. The w olf

was not expecting an attack from that end.

RR, Roques Branche XVI, 14981 - 15070; Martin XIX,

1-90.

Ysengrin invites Rainsent, the mare, to accompany

him, promising her a much better life than that which

she has with her master.

The mare consents to go with him but first asks that

he remove a thorn from her hoof. Ysengrin approaches to

remove the thorn; the mare kicks him. 68

47C FOX TIES ONE END OF THE ROPE AROUND WOLF'S NECK .

AND OTFIER END TO HORNS OF COW THEY INTEND TO

EAT. Cow drags wolf to house where man skins it.

RR, Roques Branche X, 9253 - 11472; Martin LX, 1 - 2212.

Hermeline, Renard's w ife, sees the sham-dead

Tiemers, the ass, lying outside her door. Enchanted by

the promise of a good supply of meat, she takes the har­

ness stolen from Tiemers' master, ties it to the ass, and

asks Renard's help in dragging the carcass inside.

Renard catches Tiemers opening his eyes but Tiemers

takes off, dragging Hermeline entangled in the harness.

Hermeline escapes when Lietard accidentally cuts off

the ass' thingh with a blow intended for Hermeline.

50 THE SICK IION. The fox pretends to seek a remedy for

the lion; advises him to skin the wolf.

1. RR, Roques Branche Xllf, 13445 - 14166; Martin XXll,

1 - 722.

Renard seeks revenge on the wolf, stag, and cock

who have just destroyed the supply of wheat he was

depending on to last him for the winter. He takes them

to King Connin, the vagina maker, who shows him his

most recent masterpiece. Renard persuades the King that

the vagina needs the embellishment of the skin from the 69

neck of a stag, the comb of the rooster, and the pelt of

the wolf. Renard produces his former co-workers who

are forced to surrender these item s.

2. RR, Roques Branche XK, 18177 - 18874; Martin X,

1113 - 1723.

Renard is on his way to Noble's court. He comes

on a pilgrim asleep under a tree, takes the herbs in his

purse and puts on the pilgrim's cape and cowl. He ar­

rives at court, pretending that his solicitude for the King

has taken him to Rome and Salerno in search of a remedy

for his illness. He requests the wolf's pelt, the stag's

horn, and the cat's hide. These animals unwillingly

surrender these items, except the cat who escapes.

51 THE LION' S SHARE. The ass divides booty equally be­

tween himself, the fox, and the lion. The lion eats the

ass. The fox then divides: gives the lion the meat and

keeps the bones.

RR, Roques Branche XVIII, 16195 - 16980, Martin XVI,

721 - 1506.

Noble asks Ysengrin, the wolf, to divide the booty

which they have captured. Ysengrin gives the bull and

the heifer to Noble, keeps the cow for himself, and sug­

gests that Renard forage for himself. Enraged, Noble 70

pummels Ysengrin and invites Renard to share the booty. .

Renard is reluctant but pressed by Noble, gives the bull

to Noble, the heifer to his wife, and the cow to his son.

Noble congratulates Renard on his wisdom; Renard replies

that Ysengrin's bloody crown was a good teacher.

53 RENARD THE FUX AT COURT. The fox is summoned to

appear before the court of justice, but he does not come

and laughs at the messengers. When he is caught at last

and about to be hanged, he escapes again.

1. RR, Roques Branche I, 940 - 1678; Martin I, 921 -

1618.

After duping several messengers sent to summon

him to court. Renard finally agrees to appear with Grim-

bert, the badger. King Noble sentences him to be hanged

but Renard wins respite by throwing himself on the King's

mercy and promising to go on a pilgrimage. As soon as

he is a safe distance from the court, he throws away the

paraphernalia of the pilgrim and mocks Noble and his

co u rtiers.

2. RR, Roques Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin Va,

258 - 1143.

Renard is summoned to court by King Noble to

. answer charges brought against him by Ysengrin. Renard 71

has to swear an oath on the holy relics, Roenel's teeth

serving as relics. Renard requests time to eat; he

e s c a p e s .

3. RR, Roques Branche XDC, 16981 - 18176; Martin X,

1 - 1112.

Renard, summoned to court, refuses repeated com­

mands to be present. Roonel, the mastiff, is dispatched

to summon Renard. On the way to the court. Renard pre­

tends that a trap baited with cheese is a sanctuary; he

prays before it. Roonel dismounts and is caught in the

trap. Renard escapes.

55 THE ANIMALS BUILD A ROAD. The fox a s o verseer pun­

ishes lazy animals.

RR, Roques Branche XIII, 13445 - 14166; Martin XXII,

1-722.

The fox, the cock, the stag, and the wolf under­

take to prepare a field for planting. The wolf clears the

bushes, the cock pulls up stumps, the deer clears the

land but the fox, under pretense of keeping watch, sleeps

while the others work. After some disagreement, they

agree to plant wheat. The wolf, cock, and stag trample

the field and gobble up the wheat. The fox takes them to

the king and gets his revenge by getting the king, a 72

vagina maker, to embellish his most recent creation

with the comb of a rooster, the pelt of a wolf, and the

skin from the neck of a stag.

56A THE FOX THREATENS TO PUSH DOWN THE TREE. The

Crow gives good advice to the magpies, the fox avenges

himself, plays dead, and catches the crow.

RR, Roques Branche XVII, 15071 - 15468; Martin V,

21 - 246 Va, 247 - 263.

Renard lies motionless, eyes closed, tongue ex­

tended, hoping that the crow he has just seen preening

itself in a stream would light on him. The crow does so

and is eaten.

57 RAVEN WITH CHEESE IN HIS MOUTH. The fox flatters

the raven into singing. He drops cheese and the fox gets

it.

RR, Roques Branche VII, 5551 - 5 703; Martin II, 844 -

1023.

Renard flatters Tiecelin, the crow, into singing by

unfavorably comparing his voice to that of his father,

Rohant. Tiecelin opens his mouth to sing and drops his

cheese recently stolen from an old peasant woman. 73

61 THE FOX PERSUADES THE COCK TO CROW WITH CLOSED .

EYES. Captures him .

1. RR, Roques Branche Ilia, 4065 - 445 8; Martin II,

28 - 468.

The fox appeals to Chantecleer's vanity by, unfavor­

ably comparing his singing to that of his father. Chante-

deer, piqued, closes his eyes to demonstrate his ability

and is caught.

2. J^, Roques Branche XVII, 15071 - 15468; Martin V,

21 - 246 and Va 247 - 263.

Here the trick backfires. Renard, disguised as a

pilgrim, invites Probert, the cricket, to sing him a

psalter but Frobert is not deceived by his false devotion

and escapes his attack.

61A HAWK AS CONFESSOR. Fox persuades cock to come down

from a tree and confess his sins to him. When cock comes

down, fox seizes him. Cock begs to be released and

tempts fox by saying that he will lead him to a feast of a

rich bishop. Fox believes it, and the cock flies away

and mocks him.

RR, Roques Branche XIV, 14167 - 14842; Martin VII,

1 - 1844. 74

Renard, adrift on a haystack, persuades Hubert,

the hawk, to confess him. When Hubert perches. Renard

seizes him and eats him. See also (Branche XVII,

15071 - 15468 (Roques); V, 21 - 246 and Va, 247 - 263

(Martin) - Renard as sham pilgrim asks his intended victim

Frobert, the grass-hopper, to confess him. Frobert tells

him that the priest is on his way. The priest arrives with

his hounds and Renard has to seek refuge in an abandoned

oven .

62 PEACE AMONG THE ANIMALS— THE FOX AND TFIE COCK.

The fox tries to b eguile the cock by reporting a new law

establishing peace among the animals. Dogs appear and

the fox flees saying that the dogs have not yet heard

of the new law.

RR, Roques Branche Ilia, 4459 - 4592.

Renard tries to beguile the Titmouse into exchang­

ing the kiss of peace with him by reporting that King

Noble has passed a new law establishing universal peace.

Dogs appear and the fox flees, replying to the Titmouse's

question about the peace by saying that the new law had

been sworn to but not published. See also J1421. 75

66B SHAM-DEAD (HIDDEN) ANIMAL BETRAYS SELF.

1. Roques Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin Va,

257 - 1143

Roenel, the dog, feigns death in an attempt to catch

Renard but Renard detects movements in his flank and his

chest; he escapes,

2. ^ Roques Branche X, 9253 - 11472; Martin IX,

1 - 2212.

Tiemers, the ass, plays dead in front of Renard's

warren. While Hermeline, Renard's wife, is attempting

to pull the carcass into the house. Renard catches

Tiemers opening his eyes .

77+ THE FOX CONFESSES HIS SINS TO GOD BEFORE HIS DEATH.

He has eaten a thousand sheep, five hundred hogs, a

hundred cows, and fifty horses.

RR, Roques Branche XIV, 14167 - 14842; Martin VII,

1 - 844.

Renard confesses his sins to Hubert, the hawk. The

list of his sins is appropriately long: perjury, excommun­

ication, sodomy, fornication, adultery, and, as a measure

of his carnality, he admits to being more lecherous than

monks and priests. 76

105 THE CAT'S ONLY TRICK. She saves herself on a tree.

The fox who knows a hundred tricks is caught.

RR, Roques Branche Illb, 4797 - 5138.

Tibert, the cat, outsmarts Renard by climbing on

a cross with the sausage they had found. Renard is

driven off by dogs.

122 THE WOLF LOSES HIS PREY. Escape by false plea.

RR, Roques Branche V, 5297 - 5390; Martin XX, 1-94.

Ysengrin, the wolf, is asked by two rams to act

as judge in a race between them before he eats them.

They run from opposite sides of the field and butt the

wolf senseless.

154 BEAR-FOOD. The fox helps the man; his reward.

1. The man in anger calls his horse "bear-food. " The

bear comes and threatens to eat the horse.

2. A fox agrees to help the man in return for geese. The

fox goes into the woods, imitates the barking of dogs.

The bear is intimidated, betrayed, and killed.

3. The man goes for the geese but instead brings dogs

back in his bag. The dogs chase the fox back to his

h o le . 77

RR, Roques Branche X, 9253 - 11472; Martin IX, 1 - 2212;

Lietard, a rich villein, threatens to give his best

ox to the bear for food. Brun, the bear, overhears the

threat and demands that Lietard honor his promise. Renard

promises to help the man in return for a plump rooster.

Renard imitates the sound of a hunting horn and Brun,

fearful of being caught poaching, begs Lietard to hide

him. Brun is killed. Renard demands the rooster; instead,

Lietard releases his dogs and Renard has no alternative

but to flee. He later avenges himself on Lietard.

227 GEESE ASK RESPITE FOR PRAYER BEFORE COCK EATS THEM.

They cackle continuously and finally escape.

1. JRR, Roques, Branche I, 940 - 1678; Martin I,

921 - 1618.

Renard is condemned to death by King Noble. He

asks respite to go on a pilgrimage. As soon as he is

safely away from the King, he throws away the parapher­

nalia of pilgrimage and escapes.

2. Roques, Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin Va,

258 - 1143.

Renard detects that the relics on which he has been

ordered to take an oath, Roenel's teeth, belong to a body

that is very much alive. He asks respite to dine and escapes, 78

3. RR, Roques, Branche VIII, 7279 - 8790; Martin VI,

1 - 1534.

After losing his battle with Ysengrin, Renard is

sentenced to death but is given respite by a priest who

tries to make a monk of him. He soon lapses and is

expelled from the monastery.

229 C+ THE ANIMALS' COURT.

RR, Roques Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin Va,

258 - 1143.

Renard, the fox, has raped Hersent, wife of

Ysengrin, the wolf.

King Noble, the lion, rules that the court should

not adjudicate on affairs of the heart. Musart, the Papal

Legate from Lombardy and learned in the law, advises that

the prince's first duty is to enforce respect for the law.

Noble submits the matter to his barons. They recommend

that Renard take an oath that he has not wronged Ysengrin.

1117 THE OGRE'S PITFALL. Tricked into falling into it himself.

See K1601.

1. RR, Roques Branche Ilia, 4655 - 4796; Martin II,

665 - 842. Renard tries to catch Tibert in a snare but chased

by dogs, is pushed into the snare by Tibert. 79

2 . RR/ Roques, Branche XV, 14843 - 14980; Martin XVII,

1 - 138.

Old Father Martin, a member of the lower clergy,

sets a trap for Ysengrin, the wolf. He falls into it him­

self and Ysengrin escapes by climbing on his shoulders.

1134 MAKING THE OGRE STRONG BY SCALDING OR INJURING

OTHERWISE.

RR, Roques Branche XII, 12933 - 13444; Martin III,

1 - 510.

Here the fox persuades the wolf that he can share

in a feast of fish if he becomes a member of a sham-order,

the brothers of Tyrol. The fox pushes his head through a

window to receive his tonsure and is scalded with burning

w ater.

1154 THE MAN WHO FALLS FROM THE TREE AND THE DEMONS.

1. Tree Refuge. Two men take refuge in a tree. Below

them (a) demons or (b) tigers assemble. One man,

through accident, or overcome by fear, falls from the tree

in the midst of the demons or tigers. The man in the tree

shouts "Grab the b ig g est one for m e, " or the lik e , and

the demons or tigers flee. 80

RR, Roques, Branche IX, 8791 - 9252; Martin VIII,

1 - 468.

Hersent, Ysengrin's wife, assembles a pack of

more than one hundred wolves who pursue Renard and

his travelling companions, the ram and the ass. They

climb a tree under which the wolves come to rest. The

ass and the ram lose their footing and fall, crushing

six wolves. The others scatter,

1418+ THE EQUIVOCAL OATH.

Branche Vila, 5 703 - 6067; Martin II, 1024 - 2390.

Hersent, Ysengrin's wife, swears that she is

innocent of adultery with Renard; she confesses her w ill­

ingness to trial by ordeal or in the court of King Noble,

the Lion.

1653 THE ROBBERS UNDER THE TREE. Object falls on robbers

from a tree. They flee and leave money.

RR, Roques, Branche XVIII, 16195 - 16980; Martin XVI,

721 - 1506.

Renard, hidden in a tree, defecates on the herds­

man lying under the tree. He flees to a stream, leaving

his herd. Renard later drowns him. 81

1681 FÜÜUSH MAN BUILDS AIR-CASTLES.

Branche IV, 5139 - 5296; Martin XV, 365 - 523.

Even before he has caught Tibert, the cat, Rufran­

gier, the priest, plans to use his hide to make a hat.

He disputes with his companion, Torgis, over sharing

the spoil. Meanwhile Tibert escapes, after mauling

Rufrangier. CHAPTER III

MüTIF-INDEX OF THE ROMAN PE RENARD

A 2 2 8 6 .2 .1 . DEVIL'S ANIMALS DEVOUR GOD’S. God makes

white fish, devil a pike to eat it; God a worm,

devil a frog.

RR, Roques, Branche III, 3733 - 3928; Martin II,

1 - 18 and XXIV, 1 - 178.

God takes pity on Adam and Eve after their

expulsion from Eden and gives them a magic wand

which they could use to supply their needs. Adam

creates a sheep with the wand. Eve a wolf which

pursues the sheep, Adam a dog which pursues the

wolf. Eve creates all the wild animals of the

forest, Adam the domesticated animals of the home.

Of. also A1755 (Devil's creation produces certain

animals), A2525.3 (Why fox is sly), A1833 (Crea­

tion of wolf), A2571 (How animals received their

names), A1884 (Creation of sheep), A1831 (Creation

of dog), B26 7.2 (Alliance of sheep and dog), AI832

(Creation of fox).

82 83

B 2 1 1 .1 .3 .1 . SPEAKING ASS.

RR, Roques Branche III, 3929 - 3962; Martin XXIV,

179 -212.

The ass, after being cruelly spurred and goaded

by Balaam, is allowed by God to speak to explain

that it is God who prevented him from advancing.

B264.6 .1 . SINGLE COMBAT BETWEEN ANIMALS.

RR, Roques Branche VII, 7279 - 8790, Martin VI,

1 - 1534.

Renard, the fox, and Ysengrin, the wolf, battle

each other in single combat. Renard is defeated.

B267.5 .+. ALLIANCE BETWEEN FOX AND CAT.

RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 4655 - 4796; Martin II.

Renard and Tibert, the cat, swear an alliance

against Ysengrin, the wolf.

B271. ANIMALS AS PLAINTIFFS.

Branche I, 1 - 413; Martin I, 1 - 397.

Ysengrin, Pinte, Chantecleer, and others

appear before the King to demand justice against

Renard. 84

B296.2+ ANIMALS JOURNEY TO ROME.

Branche IX, 8791 - 9252; Martin VIII, 1 - 468.

Renard, the fox, the ass, and the ram journey

to Rome: Renard to confess his sins before the Pope,

the ram to escape his ungrateful master, the ass

to escape his problems.

C25. "BEAR'S FOOD. " To urge his horses on, a man

threatens them with the bear, calling them "bear's

food. " The bear hears and comes for them.

Branche X, 9253 - 11472; Martin DC, 1 - 2212.

Lietard, a rich villein, threatens to give his

finest ox, Rognel, to the bear. Brun, the bear,

overhears and taking the threat for a promise,

demands that Lietard honor it.

D 1 8 1 0 .8 .3 .1 .1 . DREAM WARNS OF ILLNESS OR INJURY. The dream

is fulfilled.

1. RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 4065 - 4458; Martin II,

23 - 468.

Chantecleer's dream, interpreted by Pinte,

presages his capture by the fox. The dream is ful­

filled. 85

See also D1812.3 .3 .5 .1. Allegorical dream

(white clasps - fox's teeth; narrow opening - his

throat; red fur coat - the fox) and D 1 8 1 3 .1 .6 . Dream

shows others in danger.

2. RR, Roques, Branche XVII, 15071 - 15468;

Martin V, 21 - 246.

Renard dreams of wearing a red fustian cloak,

torn in several places and bordered around the neck

by a completely white trimming. The border en­

closes his neck so tightly that it almost strangles

him. The dream is fulfilled when Ysengrin meets

him and almost kills him. See also D1812.3.3 .5 .1.

Allegorical dream: red cloak torn in p laces, white

borders on neck of coat.

D 1814.2. ADVICE FROM DREAM.

RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 4065 - 445 8; Martin II,

23 - 468.

Chantecleer dreams of a strange creature with

a red fur coat ornamented with white c la sp s , The

creature forces him to put the coat on but Chante­

cleer finds the narrow opening uncomfortably res­

tricting. Pinte advises that the fox will get him. 86

2. RR, Roques, Branche XVII, 15071 - 15468;

Martin V, 21 - 246 and Va, 247 - 263.

Renard dreams that he is dressed in a coat of

red fustian, tom in several places and bordered

towards the neck by snow white trimming. The

border is so difficult to put on that it almost strang­

les him. Hersent advises that the dream augurs

worry and grief for him.

D2072 .0 .2 .1 . HORSE (ASS) ENCHANTED SO THAT HE STANDS

STILL.

RR, Roques Branche III, 3929 - 3962; Martin XXIV,

179 - 212.

God places an angel armed with a shining sword

in the path of the ass so that he cannot advance.

See also W167 (Stubbornness: Ass stubborn

because of act of God).

E593. GHOST STEALS BOOKS FROM PRIEST.

RR, Roques Branche XI, 11473 - 12932; Martin XII,

1 - 1486.

Tibert, the cat, is caught in a tree by the Abbe

Huon's hounds. A priest arrives and tries to pelt

Tibert down from the tree so that he could get at

his hide. Tibert jumps on the priest's horse and

flees with his books. 87

F 54 7 .5 .2 . ENORMOUS VAGINA.

RR, Roques Branche XIII, 13445 - 14166; Martin

XXII, 1 - 722.

Renard, the fox, is horrified at the enormous

vagina shown him by King Connin and suggests that

it be covered by the skin from the neck of a stag,

the comb of the rooster, and the pelt of the wolf.

F899.4+ EXTRAORDINARY ROD.

RR, Roques, Branche III, 3733 - 3928; Martin II,

1 - 18 and XXIV, 1 - 178.

God takes pity on Adam and Eve after their

expulsion from Eden and gives them a magic rod

with which they could obtain what they need. See

also D1254 (Magic Staff).

H1556 .3 . TEST OF FIDEUTY THROUGH OFFERING SUSPECTED

ASSASIN OPPORTUNITY TO COMMIT THE MURDER.

RR, Roques Branche Ilia, 4459 - 4592; Martin II,

469 - 900.

The Titmouse tests Renard's fidelity by twice

giving him a chance to eat him, first by throwing

moss at him; second by flying dangerously close

to him. 88

J647.1 AVOID ENEMY'S REVENGE BY MAKING PEACE.

RR, Roques Branche XVIII, 16195 - 16980; Martin

XVI, 721 - 1506.

Renard makes peace with Ysengrin to avoid

revenge but the peace is "la pes Renaît. "

J811. WISDOM OF CONCESSIONS TO POWER.

RR, Roques Branche VII, 15071 - 15468; Martin V,

21 - 246 and Va 247 - 263.

Renard, the fox, sees the wisdom of conceding

to the wolf's power after the wolf has eaten the ham

stolen by the fox and left him only the string which

tied the ham.

J811.1 THE LION'S SHARE.

RR, Roques Branche XVIII, 16195 - 16980; Martin

XVI, 721 - 1506.

Asked to divide the cattle which they had just

stolen, Ysengrin, the wolf, unwisely gives the bull

and heifer to King Noble, keeps the cow for himself,

and suggests that Renard go forage for his meals.

Noble, enraged, pummels him and invites Renard

to divide the spoils. Renard wisely gives Noble

the bull, the Queen the heifer, and the Prince the 89

cow. Complimented on his ability to share, Renard

replies that Ysengrin's bloody crown provided an

object lesson in the act of sharing.

J1261. 2. DISRESPECT FOR THE SACRAMENT.

RR, Roques Branche Illb, 4797 - 5138, Martin XV,

1 - 364.

Tibert refuses to throw a portion of the sausage

to Renard on the grounds that the sausage is a holy

thing.

J1263 .1 . REPARTEE BASED ON CLERICAL IGNORANCE .

RR, Roques Branche XV, 14843 - 14980; Martin XVII,

1 - 138.

Father Martin, a member of the lower clergy,

is better schooled in the arts of animal husbandry

than in reading books .

J1264 REPARTEE CONCERNING CLERICAL INCONTINENCE.

RR, Roques Branche XI, 11473 - 12932; Martin XII,

1 - 1486.

Tibert, the cat, accuses the priest of wanting

his fur to take to the prostitute he keeps at

home. 90

J15 77. DECEPTIVE INVITATION Tü A FEAST.

RR, Roques, Branche Illb, 4797 - 5138; Martin XV,

1 - 364.

Tibert, the cat, perched atop a cross with the

sausage which he and Renard had found, invites

Renard to share the sausage. See also J1565.1.

Fox and crane invite each other. Fox serves food

on a flat dish so that the crane cannot eat. Crane

serves food in a bottle.

J1662. THE CAT'S ONLY TRICK. She saves herself on a

tree.

1. RR, Roques Branche Illb, 4797 - 5138.

Tibert escapes with the sausage by climbing

on a cross while Renard is left at the foot and is

eventually chased by the approaching hounds.

2. Roques, Branche XI, 11473 - 12932;

Martin XII, 1 - 1486.

Chased by the hounds belonging to Guillaume

Bacon, Lord of Molay, Tibert, the cat, escapes

up a tree.

J1785 .5 . CAT MISTAKEN FOR DEVIL.

RR, Roques Branche IV, 5139 - 5296; Martin XV,

365 - 523. 91

A priest attempts to capture Tibert to use his

hide to make a hat. He is attacked by the cat and

he thinks it is the devil.

J1791.7 . FOX DOES NOT RECOGNIZE HIS OWN REFLECTION

IN WATER.

RR, Roques Branche 11,3257- 3732; Martin IV, 1 - 478.

Renard and Ysengrin see their reflections in the

water and take them for their respective wives .

J2060.1 . QUARREL AND FIGHT OVER DETAILS OF AIR-CASTLE S.

RR, Roques Branche IV, 5139 - 5296; Martin XV,

365 - 523.

Rufrangier and Torgis , two priests on their way

to a synodical meeting, quarrel over details of

dividing the hide of a cat they have not yet captured.

12061 .3 . AIR-CASTLE: TO SELL HIDE OF SHAM-DEAD FOX.

1. RR, Roques, Branche XII, 12933 - 13444;

Martin III, 1 - 5 1 0 .

The fishermen, coming on the carcass of a

sham-dead Renard, joyfully estimate that his hide

would bring them at least five s o u s . The fox

escapes after stealing a quantity of fish. 92

2. RR, Roques, Branche XVII, 15071 - 15468;

Martin V, 21 - 246 and Va, 247 - 263.

Renard feigns death. A peasant sees him and

swiftly estimates that his pelt would be worth at

least the cost of the ham he is carrying, without

counting the soft fur of the neck which he would

keep to embroider his own coat. The fox escapes

after luring him away from the ham.

See also RR, Roques Branche IV, 5139 - 5196

(Martin XV, 365 - 523). Two priests on their way

to synod divide the hide of the cat perched on the

cross and make plans for its use even before catch­

ing the cat.

J2351.3 . DUPE LOSES BOOTY THROUGH SINGING.

1. RR, Roques Branche VII, 5551 - 5703; Martin II,

844 - 1023.

Tiecelin, the crow, perches on a tree under

which Renard is lying. Renard encourages Tiecelin

to sing; he loses his cheese.

2. RR, Roques Branche XVIII, 15469 - 16194;

Martin XVI, 1 - 720.

Noiret, the rooster, escapes from Renard. He

invites him to sing. 93

K3 .1 . RELATIVE SUBSTITUTES IN CONTEST.

RR, Roques Branche VI, 5391 - 5550; Martin XXI,

1 - 160.

A peasant finds a ham and Patous, the bear,

and Ysengrin, the wolf, demand a portion. • The

bear suggests a contest. He who has the largest

backside will win the ham. The peasant's wife

substitutes for him. She wins the contest easily.

K231. 2. REWARD FOR ACCOMPLISHMENT OF TASK

DE CE PTIVE LY WITHHE ID .

1. _RR, Roques Branche XVII, 15469 - 16194;

Martin XVI, 1 - 720.

Berton tries to deceptively withhold the reward

promised Renard. He claims that the cock is tough

and leathery and offers three hens instead. CF. K533.

"Wait till I get fat. "

2. RR, Roques, Branche X, 9253 - 11472; Martin IX,

1 - 2212.

Renard undertakes to save Lietard's ox from Brun

and Lietard promises to give him his plump rooster,

Blanchard. Renard keeps his part of the bargain but

Lietard defaults. He offers Renard plump hens and

finally drives him from the courtyard by unleashing 94

his three mastiffs. See also K235 .1. Fox is

promised chickens: is driven off by dogs .

K2 74.1 . DOG ACTS AS JUDGE.

RR, Roques, Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin Va,

258 - 1143.

Roenel, the dog, is appointed to act as judge

when Renard and Ysengrin meet to resolve their

differences. Ysengrin suborns Roenel; he agrees

to ambush Renard.

K331. GOODS STOLEN WHILE OTHERS SLEEP.

RR, Roques, Branche III, 3963 - 4065; Martin XXIV,

213 - 314.

Renard steals Ysengrin's hams while Ysengrin

is asleep .

K 334.1. THE RAVEN WITH CHEESE IN HIS MOUTH. The fox

flatters him into singing so that he drops his cheese.

RR, Roques, Branche VII, 5551 - 5 703; Martin EE,

844 - 1023.

Renard flatters Tiecelin, the crow, into singing

so that he drops the cheese which he has just

stolen from an old peasant. 95

K335 .1 .1 OBJECT FALLS ON ROBBERS FROM TREE.

1. £R, Roques, Branche IX, 8791 - 9252; Martin

VIII, 1 - 468.

Pursued by a pack of wolves. Renard and his

companions,the ass and the ram, take refuge in a

tree. The wolves come to rest under the tree. The

ass and the ram lose their footing and fall on six

wolves, squashing them. The others flee.

2. Roques Branche XVIII, 16195 - 16980;

Martin 721 - 1506.

Here Renard defecates on a herder sleeping

under tree. He flees, leaving his herd to fox, lion,

and wolf.

K 341.2.1. ANIMAL FEIGNS DEATH REPEATEDLY AND THEN

ENTICES OWNER FROM GOODS.

RR, Roques Branche XVII, 15071 - 15468; Martin V,

21 - 246,and Va, 247 - 263.

Renard repeatedly feigns death, each time jump­

ing out of reach as soon as his pursuer, the villein,

approaches. The villein puts down his ham to catch

Renard; Ysengrin steals the ham.

K343.2 . THIEF ADVISES THAT MEAT BY HUNG UP. Steals

it himself. 96

RR. Roques, Branche III, 3963 - 4064; Martin XXIV,

213 - 314.

Renard advises Ysengrin to hide the hams which

hang in full view from the covetous eyes of his

neighbors and then to claim that they had been stolen

to avoid having to share them.. Renard returns during

the night and steals the hams. He pretends not to

believe Ysengrin when he claims that the hams had

been stolen. See also K531 - Goods stolen while

owner sleeps.

K347. + . COZENING FAILS. Trickster's claim to relationship

fails to cause intended victim to relax vigilance.

RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 445 9 - 4592.

Renard's claim to be godfather to Titmouse's

son fails to cause his intended victim to relax his

vigilance.

K3 7 1 .1 . TRICKSTER THROWS FISH OFF WAGON. The fox

plays dead; a man throws him on the wagon of fish.

The fox throws the fish off and carries them away.

RR, Roques, Branche XII, 12933 - 13444; Martin III,

1 - 510.

Renard feigns death; he is picked up by passing

fishermen and thrown on the wagon filled with fish. 97

Renard eats his fill and before leaving with a good

supply, cannot resist the temptation to abuse the

fishermen.

K5 22. E SCAPE BY SHAMMING DEATH.

RR, Roques, Branche 11,3257-3732; Martin IV,

1 - 478.

Ysengrin is pulled out of the well, beaten by

the priests, and escapes only by shamming death.

KSSl. RESPITE FROM DEATH GRANTED UNTIL PARTICUIAR

ACT IS PERFORMED.

Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin Va, 258 - 1143.

Renard detects that Roenel, over whose teeth

he must swear, is alive and to escape certain death,

demands the right to eat before he takes the oath;

he escapes.

K 551.1.1. RESPITE FROM DEATH GRANTED UNTIL CONFESSION

IS MADE.

RR, Roques Branche VII, 7279 - 8790; Martin VI

1 - 1534.

Renard requests that he be given the opportunity

to make confession before he is hung. Balin con­

fesses him. He is saved by Bernard, the priest. 98

K561.1 ANIMAL CAPTÜR PERSUADED TO TALK AND RELEASE

VICTIM FROM HIS MOUTH.

1. _RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 4065 - 4458; Martin

II, 23 - 468.

Chantecleer persuades Renard to defy his pur­

suers by boasting that he has caught him in spite of

them. Chantecleer escapes .

2. RR, Roques, Branche XVIII, 15469 - 16194;

Martin XVI, 1 - 720.

Renard receives Noiret, a fine rooster, from

Berton le Maire. In reply to Noiret's complaints

on man's ingratitude. Renard advises that the serf

lives by his master's will and that to give his life

for his master is the highest service. Noiret asks

Renard to serenade him into paradise. Renard

opens his mouth; Noiret escapes.

K579. ESCAPE BY FALSE PLEA.

RR, Roques Branche I, 940 - 1678; Martin I,

921 - 1618.

Renard escapes hanging by asking that he be

allowed to make a pilgrimage. He taunts his former

tormentors as soon as he is at a safe distance. 99 K5 79.5 .1 . WULF ACTS AS JUDGE BEFORE EATING THE RAMS. '

They are to go to the end of the field and run to

him . They run to him and butt him unconscious.

RR, Roques, Branche V, 5297 - 5390; Martin XX,

1 - 9 4 .

Ysengrin, the wolf, agrees to act as a judge

in a race between two rams before eating them.

They run from opposite ends of the field and butt

him unconscious.

K607.3 .4 . SFIAM-DEAD DOG BETRAYED BY THE MOVEMENT OF

HIS FIANKS AND BY HIS BREATHING.

1. RR, Roques Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin Va,

258 - 1143.

Roenel, feigning death in ambush for Renard,

betrays himself by his breathing and by the move­

ment of his flanks.

2. RR, Roques, Branche X, 9253 - 11472; Martin IX,

1 - 2212.

Tiemers, the a s s , feigning death in front of

Renard's warren, betrays himself by opening his

e y e s . 100

K651. WOLF DESCENDS INTO WELL IN ONE BUCKET AND

RESCUES FOX IN THE OTHER.

RR. Roques, Branche II, 325 7 - 3732; Martin IV,

1 - 478.

Deceived by his own reflection. Renard is

trapped at the bottom of a well. Ysengrin, the wolf,

mistaking his own reflection for his wife's and

thinking that he has been cuckolded, forgets his

anger when Renard tells him that he is in paradise

where provisions abound. Ysengrin descends into

the w ell, thereby rescuing Renard.

See also K735 .5. Dupe tricked into well;

left there.

K652. WOLF CLIMBS FROM PIT ON PRIEST'S BACK.

RR, Roques Branche XV, 14843 - 14980; Martin XVII,

1 - 138.

Father Martin, an old priest more learned in

husbandry than in priest-craft, sets a trap for

Ysengrin by digging a pit, camouflaging it with a

net and baiting it with a sheep. Ysengrin falls into

the trap but escapes after he pulls Father Martin

into the trap and escapes by climbing on his

shoulders. 101

K721. COCK PERSUADED TO CROW WITH EYES CLOSED.

Seized.

RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 4065 - 445 8; Martin II,

23 - 468.

Renard seizes Chantecleer after he persuades

him tc crew after unfavorably comparing him to his

father. Chantecleer closes his eyes to demon­

strate his superior ability and is seized.

K730. VICTIM TRAPPED.

RR. Roques Branche I, 745 - 939; Martin I,

729 - 921.

The fox tricks the cat into entering a hole in a

granary knowing there is a trap inside.

K 730.1.1 . CLAIM THAT A TRAP IS A PRAYER HOUSE.

RR, Roques Branche XIX, 16981 - 18176; Martin X,

1 - 1112.

Renard, the fox, claims that trap is a sanc­

tuary; Roenel, the dog, is caught.

K735.1. MATS OVER HOLE AS PITFALL.

RR, Roques, Branche XV, 14843 - 14980; Martin XVII,

1 - 138. 102

Old Father Martin places a net over a hole

and baits the trap with a sheep. Ysengrin is caught.

K737. CAPTURE BY CLOSING ENTRANCE TO VICTIM’S

HOME.

1. RR, Roques Branche I, 2261 - 2798; Martin Ib,

2203 - 2748.

Ysengrin meets Renard disguised as an English

jongleur, and invites him to play at King Noble's

court. Renard declines, claiming that his flute had

been stolen. Ysengrin takes him to a villein who

owns a flute, steals the flute, and gives it to Renard.

Renard closes the window. Ysengrin is caught and

castrated by the villein's dogs.

2. RR, Roques, Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin

Va, 258, 1143.

Renard closes the window to Frobert's home

after enticing Tibert, the cat, and Brun, the bear,

into the house. They are seized and beaten. See

also KlOlO - Dupe persuaded to steal food; cannot

esc a p e .

3. Roques Branche, K, 8791 - 9252; Martin

VIII, 1 - 468. 103

Renard and his travelling companions invite

Ysengrin to enter the house which they have occu­

pied for the night. They close the door on his neck.

4. RR, Roques, Branche XIV, 14167 - 14842;

Martin VII, 1 - 844.

Renard enters the hen house of a monastery and

begins to dine on the plumb inhabitants. A monk

who has gotten up to relieve himself hears him and

closes the door to the hen house. He is beaten.

K815 . VICTIM LURED BY KIND WORDS APPROACHES TRICK­

STER AND IS ALMOST KILLED.

RR, Roques, VII, 551 - 5 703; Martin II, 844 - 1023.

Renard lures Tiecelin, the crow, to descend to

recover cheese; he attacks, but crow escapes.

K932.1 .+ . TRICKSTER POLLUTES WOLF CUBS.

RR, Roques Branche Vila, 5 703 - 6067; Martin II,

1024 - 2390.

Renard urinates on Ysengrin's cubs after com­

mitting adultery with Hersent, Ysengrin’s wife.

K932.1 .1 . + . WIFE POLLUTES HUSBAND WHO TRIES TO EXTRICATE

HER FROM HOLE IN WHICH SHE IS STUCK. 104 RR, Roques Branche Vila, 5 703 - 6067; Martin II,

1024 - 1390.

Hersent, just ravished by Renard, pollutes

Ysengrin, her husband, as he tries to pull her out

of the hole in which she is stuck,

K932. 2.+ . TRICKSTER POLLUTES FOOD SUPPLY.

RR, Roques Branche Vila, 5703 - 6067; Martin 11,

1024 - 2390.

Renard, after eating Ysengrin's provisions,

pollutes what is left.

K961.1.1. TIT FOR TAT. Wolf tells lion that fox does not

esteem him. Later fox tells lion that his only cure

lies in his wrapping himself in the wolf's skin.

See Type 50 - The sick Lion.

1. RR, Roques, Branche Xlll, 13445 - 14166;

Martin XXll, 1 - 722.

After being cheated of his share of a wheat

field which he had planted together with the wolf,

stag, and rooster. Renard gets his revenge. He

goes to King Connin who proudly shows him his

latest masterpiece, a huge vagina. Renard suggests

that it could be made even more magnificent if

covered with the skin from the neck of a stag, the 105

comb of a rooster, and the pelt of a wolf. These

animals are successively brought in and relieved

of the necessary accessories.

2. RR, Roques, Branche, XIX, 18177 - 18874;

Martin X, 1113 - 1723.

Renard, claiming that he had been absent from

court because he had travelled to Salerno and Rome

in search of medication to cure the King's illness,

produces the medicine which he had just stolen

from a sleeping pilgrim. The King agrees to give

Renard whatever he prescribes to relieve him of

his illness. Renard prescribes the wolf's skin,

the stag's antlers and the cat’s hide. The animals

are produced, except the cat, who is much too

swift.

K1012.2. MAKING THE DUPE STRONG—BY SCALDING.

RR. Roques Branche XII, 12933 - 13444; Martin III,

1 - 510.

Renard persuades Ysengrin that he can share in

a feast of fish if he becomes a member of a sham-

order - the brothers of Tyrol. Ysengrin pushes his

head through a small window to be tonsured and is

scalded with boiling water. 106

Kl 021. THE TAIL-FISHER. The Fox is persuaded to fish

with his tail through a hole in the ice. When he is

attacked and tries to escape, he loses his tail.

RRf Roques Branche XII, 12933 - 13444; Martin III,

1 - 510.

After receiving his tonsure, Ysengrin is told by

Renard that the rules of the order to which he has

just been admitted establish that he spend his first

night in pious vigil. Renard takes him to a hole in

the ic e , attaches a bucket to his ta il, and lowers

the tail into the icy water. Ysengrin is sure that he

will make a good catch but his tail freezes fast.

He is attacked and beaten and escapes only after

losing his tail.

K1021.1 HAIR TIED, TAIL TIED.

RR, Roques Branche I, 1679 - 2260; Martin I,

1619 - 2202.

The animals besieging Renard in his strong­

hold fall asleep; Renard sneaks out and ties their

tails, hair, feet, etc. to trees.

K1022.2 WOLF TIED TO COW's HORNS.

RR, Roques Blanche X, 9253 - 11472; Martin IX,

1 - 2212. 107

Renard's wife ties one end of the harness to

the ass who is feigning death and becomes entan­

gled in the other end. The ass takes off, dragging

her to his master. She escapes when the villein

accidentally cuts off the ass' thigh.

K l l l l . DUPE PUTS MUZZLE INTO CLEFT OF TREE.

RR, Roques Branche I, 492 - 744; Martin I, 474 -

728.

Renard promises to take Brun, the bear, to a

supply of honey. He takes him to an oak tree which

Lanfroi, the forester, had recently split and into the

cleft of which he had placed two wedges . Brun

places his head in the cleft and Renard removes

the wedges.

K1121.1. WOLF TRIES TO REMOVE THORN FROM HORSE'S

HOOF: KICKED IN FACE.

RR, Roques Branche XVI, 149 81 - 15070; Martin XIX,

1-90.

Ysengrin, the wolf, promises Rainsent, the mare,

a good life if she would become his ally. She asks

him to remove a thorn from her hoof and kicks him

squarely between chest and snout. 108

Kl3 84. FEMALE OVERPOWERED WHEN CAUGHT IN ENTRANCE

TO FOX’ S DEN.

RR, Roques Branche Vila, 5 703 - 6607; Martin II,

1024 - 1390.

Hersent, caught In the narrow entrance to

Renard's den, is violated by him.

K1501. HUSBAND DECEIVED BY ADULTEROUS WIFE.

RR, Roques Branche Vila, 5703 - 6067; Martin II,

1024 - 1390.

Hersent deceives Ysengrin after committing

adultery with Renard.

K1513.1.+ THE WIFE'S EQUIVOCAL OATH.

RR, Roques Branche Vila, 5703 - 6067; Martin II,

1024 - 2390.

Hersent swears that she is innocent of an adul­

terous relationship with Renard. She offers to

undergo trial by ordeal.

K1601. DECEIVER FALLS INTO HIS OWN TRAP (literally).

Arranges a trap or pitfall but is himself caught.

1. j^, Roques Branche Ilia, 3655 - 4796; Martin II,

665 - 842. 109

Renard attempts to maneuver Tibert, the cat,

into a trap he had seen along the way. The hounds

attack and Tibert pushes Renard into the trap.

2. I^, Roques, Branche XV, 14843 - 14980;

Martin XVin, 1 - 138.

Father Martin falls into the trap which he had

carefully prepared for Ysengrin, the wolf.

K1601.1 . PITFALL ARRANGED BUT VICTIM ESCAPES IT.

RR. Roques, Branche Ilia, 4655 - 4796, Martin II,

665 - 842.

Tibert escapes snare which Renard hopes he

would fall into by riding in a straight line along the

edge of a wood.

K1817.2. DISGUISE AS PILGRIM.

1. RR, Roques Branche XVII, 15071 - 15468;

Martin V, 21 - 246, Va, 247 - 263.

Renard, disguised as a pilgrim, penetrates into

the courtyard of a priest in search of food.

2. RR, Roques, Branche XIX, 18177 - 18874;

Martin X, 1113 - 1723.

Renard has heard of the King's illness and sets

out for the court. On the way, he comes on a pilgrim 110

sleeping under a tree. He takes his purse contain­

ing the herb Aliboron, puts on his cape and cowl,

and arrives at Noble's court pretending that his

solicitude for the King's health has taken him on

a pilgrimage to Salerno and Rome from where he

has just returned with precious medicine.

K1817.3. DISGUISE AS A MINSTREL.

RR, Roques Branche I, 2799 - 3256; Martin Ib,

2749 - 3219.

Renard has fallen into a vat of yellow dye; he

further disguises as an English jongleur. Neither

Ysengrin nor his w ife, who is about to remarry,

recognizes him.

K1821.5. DISGUISE BY DYEING COMPLEXION.

RR, Roques Branche I, 2261 - 2798; Martin Ib,

2203 - 2748.

Fox falls into a vat of yellow dye. He welcomes

the disguise because the King has restricted his

ability to hunt by placing a price on his head.

K1860. DECEPTION BY FEIGNED DEATH.

1. RR, Roques Branche XII, 12933 - 13444; Martin III,

1 - 510. I l l

Renard deceives the fishermen by feigning

death and later stealing their fish.

2. RR, Roques, Branche XVIII, 15071 - 15468;

Martin V, 21 - 246 and Va, 247 - 263.

Renard lies motionless, his eyes closed, his

tongue extended, hoping that the crow he had just

seen preening itself would choose him for his next

meal. The crow does; Renard makes a meal of him.

K1955.2. SHAM PHYSICIAN PRETENDS TO DIAGNOSE ENTIRELY

FROM URINALYSIS. Really from observations and

inference from trifles.

RR, Roques Branche XIX, 18177 - 18874; Martin X,

1113 - 1723.

Renard, disguised as a pilgrim, takes a sample

of Noble's urine and diagnoses from it what every­

one knew - that King Noble had a high fever.

K1961.1. SHAM PRIEST.

RR, Roques Branche XI, 11473 - 12932; Martin XII,

1 - 1486.

Renard and Tibert, the Oat, in sacerdotal gar­

ments sing the Vespers and eat the cheese they find

on the altar. 112

K2027 FOX CONFESSES TO HAWK , THEN EATS HIM.

RR, Roques Branche XIV, 14167 - 14841; Martin VII,

1 - 844.

Caught on a floating haystack. Renard claims

that he is ready to confess his sins and invites

Hubert, the hawk, to confess him. He eats his

confessor.

K2055 FOX CONFESSES SINS BUT IS IMMEDIATELY READY

TO STEAL AGAIN.

RR, Roques Branche I, 940 - 1678; Martin I, 921 -

1618.

Grimbert is returning with Renard, who has

recently confessed to him, to King Noble's court

to which Renard has been summoned by royal edict.

In spite of his recent confession, Renard invites

Grimbert to join him in raiding a farmhouse.

L330. EASY ESCAPE OF WEAK (SMALL).

1. j^, Roques, Branche I, 940 - 1678; Martin I,

921 - 1618.

Couard, the hare, escapes while Renard is

exultant over his escape from certain death by

hanging. 113

2. RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 4065 - 4458;

Martin II, 23 - 468.

Chantecleer easily escapes from Renard after he invites him to taunt his pursuers.

3. RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 4459 - 4592,

The Titmouse escapes Renard's duplicity by

refusing to accept his announcement of the recent

declaration of universal peace.

4. RR, Roques, Branche Illb, 4797 - 5138, Martin XV,

1 - 364.

Tibert, the cat, easily outdistances Renard and

perches atop cross, knowing that Renard is incapable

of climbing.

5. M , Roques, Branche VII, 5551 - 5703;

Martin E, 844 - 1023.

Tiecelin, the crow, escapes Renard's attacks.

6. IW, Roques, Branche XVII, 15071 - 15468;

Martin V, 21 - 246 and Va, 247 - 263.

Frobert, the cricket, refuses to be lured by the

false devotion of Renard, the sham pilgrim.

7. m , Roques, Branche XVIII, 15469 - 16194;

Martin XVI, 1 - 720. 114

Noiret, the rooster, escapes from Renard by

asking him to sing.

N65 0 . LIFE SAVED BY ACCIDENT.

1. RR, Roques Branche Ilia, 4655 - 4796; Martin II,

665 - 842.

Renard's life is saved when a villein accidentally

cuts the snare in which he is caught with an axe-

blow intended for Renard.

2. JRR, Roques, Branche X, 9253 - 11473; Martin DC,

1 - 2212.

Hermeline's life is saved when the villein,

Lietard, releases her from the harness in which she

is entangled by accidentally amputating the ass'

thigh with a blow intended for her.

3. RR, Roques, Branche XI, 11473 - 12932;

Martin XII, 1 - 1486. Tibert, the cat, is saved

when a peasant accidentally cuts the bell rope in

which he is entangled with a blow intended for him.

N 6 8 1 . HUSBAND ARRIVES HOME JUST AS WIFE IS TO MARRY

ANOTHER.

RR, Roques Branche I, 2799 - 3256; Martin Ib,

2749 - 3219. 115

Renard, disguised as an English jongleur,

arrives home to witness the marriage of his wife

to Poncet, Grimbert's cousin. She had been per­

suaded by Tibert, among others, that her husband

had been hanged.

R15 2 WIFE RE SCUE S HUSBAND.

RR, Roques Branche I, 1679 - 2260; Martin I>a,

1619 - 2202.

Renard, sentenced to be hanged by King Noble,

is rescued by Hermeline, his wife, who arrives with

a huge ransom of silver and gold.

R 251. FLIGHT ON A TREE, W HICH OGRE TRIES TO CUT

DOWN.

RR, Roques Branche I, 1679 - 2260; Martin la,

1619 - 2202.

Renard escapes from the King and his nobles

and seeks refuge in a tree. The King orders that

the tree be cut down. Renard knocks him senseless

and escapes while his nobles crowd around him.

S I7 6 . MUTILATION: SEX ORGANS CUT OFF.

RR, Roques Branche I, 2261 - 2798; Martin Ib,

2203 - 2748. 115

Renard, disguised as an English jongleur,

arrives home to witness the marriage of his wife

to Poncet, Grimbert's cousin. She had been per­

suaded by Tibert, among others, that her husband

had been hanged,

R15 2 WIFERE SCUE S HUSBAND.

RR, Roques Branche I, 1679 - 2260; Martin la,

1619 - 2202.

Renard, sentenced to be hanged by King Noble,

is rescued by Hermeline, his wife, who arrives with

a huge ransom of silver and gold.

R 251. FLIGHT ON A TREE, WHICH OGRE TRIES TO CUT

DOWN.

RR, Roques Branche I, 1679 - 2260; Martin la,

1619 - 2202.

Renard escapes from the King and his nobles

and seeks refuge in a tree. The King orders that

the tree be cut down. Renard knocks him senseless

and escapes while his nobles crowd around him.

S I76. MUTILATION: SEX ORGANS CUT OFF.

RR, Roques Branche I, 2261 - 2798; Martin Ib,

2203 - 2748. 116

Ysengrin, the wolf, caught in the villein's

house as a result of Renard's perfidy, is attacked

by the villein's dogs and castrated.

T 4 7 1 .4 .+ HUSBAND COMES UPON WIFE BEING RAPED.

RR, Roques Branche Vila, 5 703 - 6067; Martin II,

1024 - 1390.

Ysengrin catches Renard raping his wife. Her­

sent, while she is stuck in the narrow entrance to

his warren.

V 29.1 . SEARCH FOR CONFESSOR.

RR, Roques Franche IX, 8791 - 9252; Martin VIII,

1 - 4 6 8 .

Renard goes to a hermit to confess his sins;

he is told that only the Pope could absolve him.

He leaves for Rome, in search of the Pope.

W 1 5 2 .1 3 . THE STINGY MAN AND HIS ANIMALS.

RR, Roques Branche X'/II, 15469 - 16194; Martin XVI,

1-720.

Berton is so stingy that he would not eat any of

his animals himself; he prefers to send them to

m arket. 117

Z 3 2 .2 . THE DEATH OF THE LITTLE HEN. She is character­

istically mourned by objects and animals.

RR, Roques Branche I, 414 - 491; Martin I, 398 -

4 7 3 .

Copette, the hen, is slain by Renard. At her

funeral, each animal takes a part with prayers,

scriptures, oration, vigil, etc. CHAPTER IV

RENARD MOTIFS NOT LISTED IN THOMPSON

TRICKSTER AT THE POINT OF BEING FORGIVEN WHEN HIS LATEST

VICTIM ARRIVES AND DEMANDS JUSTICE.

1. RR, Roques, Branche I, 1 - 413; Martin I, 1 - 397.

Annoyed by Ysengrin's intransigence. Noble, the King, is about to free Renard when Chantecleer, Pinte, and three other hens arrive bearing Copette's mutilated body. They come to implore

Noble's justice against Renard who had killed Copette.

2. Roques, Branche I, 1679 - 2260; Martin la, 1619 - 2202.

Renard's wife arrives with a huge ransom of gold and silver and Renard is about to be forgiven for his misdeeds when Chauve-

Souris, the husband of Pele, the rat killed by Renard, arrives at the court to demand justice, bearing Pele's mutilated body.

TRICKSTER APPEALS TO INTENDED VICTIM'S VANITY BY UNFAVOR­

ABLY COMPARING HIS SINGING TO THAT OF HIS FATHER.

1. RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 4065 - 4458; Martin II, 23 - 468.

Renard appeals to Chanticleer's vanity by unfavorably com­ paring his singing to that of his (Chanticleer's) late father, Chanteclin,

118 119

2. Roques,Branche VII, 5551-5703; Martin II, 844 - 1023.

Renard appeals to Tiecelin's vanity by unfavorably compar­ ing his (Tiecelin's) singing to that of his father, Rohant.

» TRICKSTER SCURNS BUÜTY IN HOPE UF CATCHING BIGGER GAME.

RR, Roques, Branche VII, 5551 - 5703; Martin II, 844 - 1023.

Renard pretends that the cheese dropped by the crow is repug­ nant to him. He invites the crow to retrieve it in hope of catching him; fails.

RENARD FALLS ASLEEP ON FLOATING HAYSTACK; WAKES TO FIND

THAT RIVER HAS RISEN AND HAYSTACK IS FLOATING DOWNSTREAM.

Branche XIV, 14167 - 14842; Martin VII, 1 - 844.

PEASANT TRAPS RENARD IN NET: BITTEN. To get free, peasant promises whatever fox wants . Fox demands rooster.

Branche XVIII, 15469 - 16194; Martin XVI, 1 - 720.

MOTIF OF TRANSITION-CHASE BY MASTIFFS OR BEATING BY

PEASANTS OR PRIESTS.

This motif occurs frequently and serves as a convenient technique to signal the end of one episode and the beginning of another. See, for example, Roques, Branche XIX, 16981 - 18176;

Martin X, 1 - 1112. CHAPTER V

TYPE INDEX UF JAMAICAN TALES HAVING CORRESPUNDENCE IN WE ST AFRICAN AND RENARD TALE S

6 . ANIMAL CAPTOR PERSUADED TO TALK AND REIÜASE VICTIM

FRUM HIS MOUTH.

Jamaica: Beckwith 14 f., No.12, "Grace Before Meat,"

a . "Monkey and Anansi. "

After Monkey boasts to Anansi of his cunning, Anansi per­

suades Monkey to rescue Tiger from a deep hole by lowering

his tail into the hole. Anansi, from the safety of a tree,

watches as the ungrateful Tiger is about to eat Monkey.

Anansi calls to Tiger, advising him to show his joy by clap­

ping and saying "I get monkey. " Monkey escapes,

Beckwith 15, Ibid., No. 12 b, "Goat and Anansi."

Tiger is more successful at hunting than Anansi who, jealous

of Tiger’s luck, tells him to put the next goat he catches

under his arm and say "T'ank de Lord. " The goat escapes

and both return without prey.

RR, Roques, Branche XVIII, 15469 - 16194; Martin XVI,

1 -7 2 0 .

120 121

The fox is able to win huge concessions from the

wealthy miser, Berton le Maire. He receives the plump hen,

Noiret, and proudly takes her back to his castle. When she

complains of the ingratitude of her master, Renard argues

that a lord has a right to dispose of his serf in any way he

sees fit. It is the duty of the master to command, the serf

to obey. Noiret, wanting to be a good serf in making the

ultimate sacrifice for her lord, asks to be serenaded by a

song from Renard. Noiret escapes as Renard launches into

h is son g.

RR, Roques, Branche Ilia, 4065 - 445 8; Martin II, 23 - 468.

Chantecleer, captured by Renard who is pursued by

a group of villeins, shrewdly tells Renard to mock his pur­

suers who are shouting "Renard I'enporte" by saying "maulgre

vostre, " Chantecleer escapes .

6 0 . FOX AND CRANE INVITE EACH OTHER. The crane (heron)

has his food in a deep dish, the fox his on a flat plate. The

crane injures his beak.

Jamaica: Beckwith II, No. 6, "Tiger's Breakfast."

After eating at Tiger's house several times, Anansi

reciprocates by inviting Tiger to breakfast telling him that

the noise he hears would be a signal that breakfast is ready.

Tiger arrives to find that Anansi has already eaten; 122

Anansi daim s that Tiger had misunderstood him for no one

can make noise while eating. Anansi invites him again

and again tricks him. Tiger gets vengeance by inviting

Anansi to breakfast and tricking him into placing his

hands inside a cow to get meat.

Jamaica: Beckwith 61, No. 57, "Cockroach Stories,"

a. "Cock's Breakfast."

Cockroach invites cock to breakfast, telling him to

come when he hears no noise. Cock arrives but cannot find

cockroach. After tricking Cock a second time. Cockroach

feigns illness. Cock leaves but returns to find Cockroach

in a gourd. He breaks the gourd and eats cockroach. Thus

the beginning of Cockroach's fear of Cock.

j^, Roques, Branche Illb, 4797 - 5138; Martin XV, 1 - 364.

The Fox and Cat find a sausage in a field. The Cat

runs off with the sausage, climbs a cross, and tantalizes

the Fox by inviting him to join him in eating the booty.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 114f.

72. RABBIT RIDES FOX A-COURTING. The fox is the favorite

suitor of the girl the rabbit wants. The rabbit tells the girl

that the fox is his horse. She refuses to believe him. She

agrees to marry rabbit if he will ride fox to her home. He

persuades the fox to carry him—usually by feigning lame­

ness— and wins the girl. 123

Jamaica: Smith 17-18, "Anancy an' Tiger Ridin' Horse."

Anancy told Tiger that he must use a saddle to ride softly

because of his sore head. He uses the bridle to prevent

Tiger's going fast, and a whip for flies. He dupes Tiger into

revealing himself as Anancy's horse.

Jamaica: Beckwith 5, No. 3, "Tiger as Riding Horse."

Anansi proves to Tiger's betrothed that Tiger is his father's

riding horse. He pretends he cannot walk, so Tiger carries

him to the place to vindicate himself.

Jamaica: Milne-Home 127, "Anansi and Tiger." After Anansi

declares that Tiger is his riding horse, he manages to trick

Tiger into allowing him to mount.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple 122.

73. BLINDING THE GUARD. The Rabbit, imprisoned in a hollow

tree, induces his guard to look up at him. He spits tobacco

juice in the guard's eyes and blinds the guard, and thus

effects his escape.

Jamaica: Beckwith 16f., No. 13c, "Goat and Anansi. "

Anansi does not kill Tiger's young as Goat does. Tiger

chases Goat into a hole and tries to dig him out with a stick.

When he leaves to get another stick, Anansi gives Goat

some salt to blow into Tiger's eye. Later, they kill Tiger, 124

RR, Roques, Branche XVIII, 16195 - 16980; Martin XVI,

721 - 1506.

Sent by King Noble to reconnoitre the land to see

if there are any hounds or villeins, Renard finds the herder

sleeping under a tree. He climbs the tree, defecates on the

herder, and later drowns him, leaving the cattle easy prey

to the three marauders .

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 129.

122. THE WOLF LOSES HIS PREY. The wolf (fox) seeks breakfast.

He threatens to eat various animals (the hog, the sheep, the

horse, etc.). At their request he waits till the passport has

been examined, the children have been baptized, and the

like. He loses his feast.

Jamaica: Jekyll 77, "Annancy, Monkey and Tiger. "

Monkey boasts to Annancy that he is very w ise. However,

he is caught by Tiger. Annancy passes and tells Tiger he

should offer a prayer of thanks. When he has finished, both

Annancy and Monkey have disappeared. Annancy has the

most sense.

Jamaica: Beckwith 14, No. 12a, "Monkey and Anansi. "

Anansi secures Monkey's release by making Tiger clap his

hands for joy over his capture of Monkey. 125

Jamaica: Ibid., 160, No. 128, "The Goat in the lion's Den."

A Goat and two kids take refuge from rain in a lion’s den.

She tells the lion there that she is looking for a minister to

christen the kids. The lion names them: Dinner, Breakfast

Tomorrow, and the mother^Dinner Tomorrow (Cf. Type 15). The

kids go out to get air. At dinner time, the mother goes out to

look for them. All disappear.

RR, Roques, Branche V, 5297 - 5390; Martin XX, 1 -9 4 .

The wolf is asked to act as a judge in a race between

two rams. They run from opposite sides of the field toward

the wolf and butt him, leaving him half-dead.

125. THE WOLF FLEES FROM THE WOLF-HEAD. The sheep have

found a snack and wolf-head. They make the wolf believe

that they have killed a wolf. He flees in terror.

Jamaica: Beckwith 161, "The Donkey, the Cat, and The

Lion's Head. " Donkey and cat, travelling together, find a

lion's head and pick it up. Later they meet some lions and

begin an argument about which of the twenty lions ' heads

they would eat. The lions flee.

W est Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 161ff.

175 . THE TARBABY AND TFIE RABBIT. The Rabbit who has been

stealing fruit from a garden, is captured by means of a tarbaby, 126 an image covered with tar. The rabbit tries to make the tarbaby talk and finally becomes so angry that he strikes it.

He sticks to the tarbaby and is captured.

Jamaica; Beckwith, 23f., No. 21, "Anansi and the Tar Baby. " a. "The escape from Tiger. " Tiger hires Anansi to watch his peas, but Anansi steals them. Tiger sets up a tar baby.

Anansi, about to be taken by Tiger, tells him that Tiger should jump over the fire three times first. He pushes Tiger into the fir e .

Jamaica: Beckwith 24f., b. "The Substitute." Anansi steals

Tacoomah's garden produce. He is caught in tar. Goat fastens himself in unloosing Anansi. He is killed.

Jamaica: Ibid., 25f., "The Grave." Anansi, too lazy to work in a garden, asks friends to bury him in the peas when he dies. His son puts up a tar stump to catch the thief.

Anansi is so ashamed when caught that he climbs up beneath the rafters, and there he is to this day.

Jamaica: Ibid., 64, No. 59, " Rabbit Stories," a . "Tar Baby." Fox sets up a tar-pole in his common to catch Brer Rabbit.

Rabbit orders the pole out of the common and begins to beat it. He is caught by Fox after becoming entirely secured. He begs not to be "dashed over the bramble, " his home.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 225ff. 127

227. GEESE ASK RESPITE FOR PRAYER BEFORE THE FOX EATS THEM.

They cackle continuously and finally escape.

Jamaica: Beckwith 64, No. 59, "Rabbit Stories,"

b. "Saying Grace. " After being caught by Fox, Rabbit re­

quests a last prayer. "Oh God, bless and blind us. " He

runs away while Fox's eyes remain closed.

RR, Roques, Branche 1, 940 - 1678, Martin 1, 921 - 1618.

After being condemned to death because of his brutal

treatment of the King's messengers and his violation of the

wolf's wife. Renard demands the right to go on a pilgrimage

to repent and be absolved of his sins. He has placed on him

the paraphernalia of the pilgrim but unceremoniously throws

them away as soon as he is a safe distance from the court.

RR, Roques, Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin Va,(258 -

1143).

Commanded by the King to swear on the relics that

he has not raped the wolf's wife. Renard recognizes that

the relics, the teeth of the hound, belong to a body which

is very much alive. He asks respite to eat, suggesting that

a well-stocked pantry, containing an abundant supply of

honey, is not far away at Frobert's farm. Thus he escapes

and at the same time succeeds in avenging himself on the

bear and the cat. 128

RR, Roques, Branche VIII, 7279 - 8790, Martin VI, 1 - 1534.

After losing his battle with the wolf. Renard is sen­

tenced to death but is given respite by a priest who tries to

make a monk of him. Renard soon lapses and is expelled

from the monastery.

480. THE SPINNING WOMEN BY THE SPRING. On the journey the

daughter milks the cow, shakes the apple tree, etc. In

service of the witch. Difficult Tasks. The animals help her

with the tasks and in the choice of a present. The ungracious

stepdaughter chooses an evil present, or the cow, the apple

tree, etc. kill her on her return.

Jamaica: Beckwith 94, No. 81, "Bosen Comer. " Bosen

Corner was the witch's place where a family secured its

water. The step-daughter was sent for water. On the way

she meets a head, a pair of feet. Finally, at the witch's

place, she cheerfully performs tasks assigned her. She

marries a rich man. The other daughter is mean to the witch

who kills her.

Jamaica: Lewis 207 - 210. A woman mistreats her niece after

the girl's mother dies. She sends the girl from home when

she breaks a jar. The girl meets three witches to whom she

speaks courteously. They send her to a house, and instruct

her to break the three eggs found at a certain tree. The eggs 129

produce the broken jar and beautiful clothes. Then the

cousin tries to do the same thing; she is discourteous and

so finds the eggs empty.

Jamaica; Smith 31 - 34, "Mother Calbee. " Phiba, the step­

daughter, is thrown into the creek because she picked fewer

peas than Beneba. She heeds the grass and tree when they

beg her not to disturb them. She milks the cow, when asked.

At Mother Calbee's, she brings water in a calabash by follow­

ing the toad's suggestion to place a plantain leaf in the

bottom. When asked, she accepts a grain of rice and a ham-

bone. She does not beat the black cat; she chooses an ugly

gourd. When she is pursued by Mother Calbee's men, she is

protected by the cow, tree, and grass. The gourd makes

her rich, and she marries the King. Her step sister follows

her example in reverse, with the result that snakes and

lizards come from her calabash.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 370ff.

563. THE TABLE, THE ASS, AND THE STICK. The stick compels

the treacherous host of the inn to give back the table and

the a s s .

Jamaica: Smith 28 - 30, "Candoo." During hard times,

Annancy sees a pot in the woods. The pot says his name is

Candoo. It produces a variety of food. Tacoma follows 130

Annancy and watches him from a tree. When Tacoma and his family have finished eating, they turn the pot over so that it no longer produces. Annancy finds a whip. After it has beaten him, he takes it home and lets it whip Tacoma and his family.

Jamaica: Beckwith 31, No. 25, "Food and Cudgel, "

a. "The Handome Packey. " During a famine, Anansi finds

a magic calabash that produces food. Although he does not tell his family, they find out. Unfortunately, they let it fall

and break. Anansi finds it again and it thrashes him. When

he takes it home and it begins to thrash his family, they flee

to the crevices, where they still remain.

Jamaica: Beckwith 32, No. 25, "Food and Cudgel. "

(The Knife and Fork). Anansi dives to retrieve his hatchet,

but brings up a magic knife and fork. He makes a feast.

Ants make a nest on the knife and fork so they would not

work. Anansi throws another hatchet into the sea, and brings

up a horse whip. It whips him. He invites guests, locks the

doors, then watches the whip beat them until the house falls

in .

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 466ff. 131

653. THE FOUR SKILLFUL BROTHERS. The father has them trained.

Display of their accomplishments. The bird's nest on the

tree. The stolen princess recovered.

Jamaica: Beckwith 15 8, N o. 124, "The S k illfu l Brothers."

Look-up-in-the-Sky, Fling-me-Stick, and Brer Buck are three

brothers. Which deserves the reward for saving the mother

carried off by the eagle? One saw her, one threw a stick,

one caught her. The reward is equally divided.

lAfestAfrica, Culture Area V: Klipple, 496ff.

670. THE ANIMAL LANGUAGES. A man learns anim al languages .

His wife wants to discover his secret. The advice of the

co c k .

Jamaica: Beckwith 154, No. 121, "The Language of the

Beasts. " A man learns the language of the beasts from a

snake to which he had brought the snake's offspring. When

the man laughs upon hearing from an animal his wife is preg­

nant, the woman demands to know why he laughed. When he

is almost persuaded to tell her, a rooster advises him to

give his wife three hard licks. Afterward, she no longer

annoys him.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 507f. 132

676. OPEN SESAME . A poor man observes robbers who enter a '

mountain. U ses, like them, the words, "Open up" and gets

gold from the mountain. His rich brother tries to do the

same thing but is killed.

Jamaica: Jekyll 20, "Open Sesame, " Tacoma, in a tree,

sees the soldiers hide the silver they had found in a house.

Annancy uses flour paste to discover what Tacoma is meas­

uring in the scales borrowed from him. Tacoma is caught in

the house and threatened with death.

Jamaica: Beckwith 26, No. 22, "Inside Cow."

Tacoomah shows Anansi how to get fat from inside the cow

by using the words, "Open Sesame" and "Shet, sesema. "

Anansi is caught when he cuts the back string. When the

maw is washed, he pretends to have been dirtied by the

entrails and demands a cow in payment. Dry-head takes

away the cow when Anansi tries to eat it away from his

fam ily.

Jamaica: Jekyll 23, "Blackbird and W oss-woss . "

Blackbird, shows Annancy the place where butchers keep

their meat. He also gives him the magic words, "One-two-

three-me no touch liver. " When Annancy took some liver,

the door would not open, so the butchers catch him. Black­

bird returns with an army of wasps just in time to save him.

They steal all the meat. 133 West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 5 20f.

927. OUT-RIDDLING THE JUDGE. The accused is set free when

the judge cannot solve the riddles propounded to him. The

riddle: What has seven tongues in one head? (Bird's nest

with seven young found in a horse's head).

Jamaica: Beckwith 69, No. 64, "Settling the Father's Debt."

A boy made a long riddle concerning the members of his

family. His father's creditor agrees to give him five pounds

for its solution. Five pounds was the debt his father owed.

(Cf. Type 921).

Jamaica: Ibid., 33, No. 26, "The Riddle." Anansi saves

Tacoomah's life by composing a riddle that the King cannot

answer. Under thee I stood (earth in his hat), silver and

gold was my tread (coins in his shoes), I rode a thing never

bom (colt cut from mare's body), "'an' a bit of the dam I

hold in my hand" (bridle) was made from the mare whose

stomach he had ripped.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 5 94ff.

1004. HOGS IN THE MU D ; SHEEP IN THE AIR. The cow s driven

away, the hog's tails in the mud, the bellwether on the

tr e e . 134

Jamaica: Beckwith 36, No. 29, "The cow-itch and Mr.

Fool-man. " Anansi earns a cow by cutting down a cow­

itch tree without scratching. (Cf. K263, H1184.). He

secures the services of an apparent fool, Mr. Fool-man,

to help him with the cow. When Anansi goes for some fire,

Mr. Fool-man and his family eat the entire cow and bury

the tail. Anansi in trying to pull out the cow "buried in the

earth, " breaks off the tail. Fool-man demands a part of the

tail as his share,

Jamaica: Milne-Home 109, "Anansi and Quanqua." Quan-

qua, so named because he overuses the words quan and qua,

was left with the ox while Atoukama went for her husband,

Anansi, to help drive it across the water. When the two

return, they find that the ox has sunk into the earth. Quan­

qua demands some of the tail, the only portion retrieved.

When the two families cook, their yams, together, all go to

Quanqua because his red ones dye the white ones. Quanqua

wins a heat endurance test when he thrusts a hot iron down

Anansi's throat. (Cf. Type 1134).

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 605ff.

1074. RACE. The trickster gets others like him to take places in

the line of the race. The dupe sees them and thinks the

trickster is outrunning him. 135 Jamaica: Beckwith 65, No. 60, "The Animal Race."

Horse races Turtle to Kingston. Turtle places a child at

each mile post. Horse drops dead when he reaches Kingston.

Jamaica: Ibid., 66, No. 60, "The Animal Race (Pigeon and

Parrot). " Pigeon and Parrot enter a race for a girl. Parrot

goes ahead before the race begins and leaves a second

Parrot that sings in answer to the opponent. When Pigeon

reaches the destination, he finds Parrot already there.

Jamaica: Jekyll 39, "Toad and Donkey. " Donkey never

races any more after Toad had won the race with him. Toad

placed one of his twenty children at each mile post. He

himself waited at the end of the route.

West Africa, Culture Area V; Klipple, 621ff.

1119. THE OGRE KILLS HIS OWN CHILDREN. Places changed in

bed (night caps).

Jamaica: Beckwith 88, No. 77, "Alimoty and Aliminty. "

A woman had her own daughters killed unwittingly by a lion

that she engaged to kill her sister's daughter. Alimoty, the

beloved of all, on two nights exchanged with one of her

cousins her distinguishing robe so that the lion slew the

wrong girl. The mother of the dead girls finally kills the

lio n . 136

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple 637ff.

1134. HEALING THE OGRE OR MAKING HIM STRONG by sca ld in g

or injuring otherwise,

Jamaica: Jekyll 70, "Annancy in Crab Country. "

Annancy, dressed as a preacher, goes into crab country.

They refuse to hear him. He returns with a band of Ratta,

Blackbird, and Frog. The crabs like the music. Then he

lets them see him baptize the three. They agree to be bap­

tized the next day. Annancy uses boiling water.

RR, Roques, Branche XII, 12933 - 13444; Martin III, 1 - 510.

Fox pretends that he is a member of a sham order,

the brothers of Tyrol, and that only brothers of the order

could gain entrance to partake of the succulent meal of fish.

After tasting a proffered morsel, wolf declares himself ready

to become a member of the order. The fox tonsures him with

boiling water.

1419. THE RETURNING HUSBAND HOODWINKED.

Jamaica: Beckwith 163, No. 134, "The Pannier Jar. "

The wife hides her first lover in the pannier jar when her

husband returns home. When her second lover arrives, he

pretends to want the jar. When the man in the jar answers

him, the visitor becomes frightened and crushes it, killing

the man. 137

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 662.

1535. THE RICH AND POOR PEASANT. The rich peasant k ills the

poor one's horse. The clairvoyant horse skin and the

adulterous priest. The rich peasant kills his horse and

his wife. Diving for sheep.

Jamaica: Beckwith 27, No. 23, "Cunnie More than Father. "

Anansi's son, Cunnie-more-'n-father was tricker than he,

so he made a bargain with Tiger to get rid of him. The plan

was unsuccessful because Cunnie overheard. When he was

caught after falling asleep, he was thrown into the sea. A

sheep-herder changes place with him on hearing that he is

going to heaven. Father Anansi asks to be placed in a

coffin and thrown into the sea in order to come into pos­

session of sheep.

Jamaica: Beckwith 164, No. 135. "Anansi kills his Grand­

mother. " Anansi tells Tiger he got his bushel of money by

killing his grandmother. In reality, a shopkeeper had given

him the money to prevent his revealing his murder of a woman,

Tiger kills his grandmother.

Jamaica: Ibid. , 164, 136, "White Belly and Anansi. "

Anansi advises White Belly to make fire at the roots of his

peas in order to make them plump. After the peas had died.

White Belly pretends his mother is a corpse and says. 138

"Mother, what did you leave me for'. " The mother flings

.a batch of bank notes out of the coffin. Anansi kills his

mother. When he asks the question, the dead woman rises

and knocks him flat.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 670.

1653. THE ROBBERS UNDER THE TREE. Man and wife in the tree.

They let the door fall. The frightened robbers flee and

leave their treasure. B. The foolish brother lets the door

(or corpse) fall.

Jamaica: Beckwith 145f., No. 109, "The fool and the Wise

Brother. " After the foolish brother had broken the legs of

the sheep and killed his mother (Cf. Type 1013) he and his

brother are evicted by the landlord, and left with only an

iron gate. In a tree, they watch robbers feasting below,

and finally drop on them their gate. After running away,

the robbers send one of their men back. When he returns

to the band without his tongue, they all abandon their

treas ure.

RR, Roques, Branche, DC 8791 - 9252; Martin VIII, 1 - 468,

After the wolf is butted senseless by the ram, his

wife runs to summon reinforcement and soon gathers a pack

of more than one hundred wolves who pursue the fox, a ss,

and ram. They scamper up a tree under which the tired 139

wolves come to rest. The ram and the ass fall, crushing

six wolves . The others scatter,

1655. THE PROFITABLE EXCHANGE. The hero has only a grain

of com; this is eaten by a cock and he gets the cock as

damages. Likewise when the hog eats the cock and the ox

eats the hog. He exchanges his ox for an old woman's

corpse and makes it appear that the princess has murdered

her. He has a son by her who surpasses him in cunning,

Jamaica: Dasent 128, "The Ear of Corn and the Twelve

Men. " Anansi, pretending to have been robbed and demand­

ing amends, changes an ear of corn into twelve men. He

presents the men to the King.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 692f. CHAPTER VI

MOTIF-INDEX OF JAMAICAN TALES FIAVING CORRESPONDENCE IN WEST AFRICAN TALES AND IN RENARD

A2320, ORIGIN OF ANIMAL CHARACTERISTICS: HEAD.

Jamaica: Jekyll 84, "Dummy." Anansi makes Dummy

talk and is rewarded with gold by the king. Annancy

selects Peafowl to sing before Dummy and thus

induces him to talk. Annancy covers Peafowl with

gold which he still carries.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 82.

A2355 .1.1 . WHY SPIDER HAS A SMALL WAIST.

Jamaica: Beckwith 20, No. 17, "House in the Air-b. "

Anansi wanted to accompany Rabbit and his children

to heaven (D1273) for a feast. When Anansi called,

"Pull up the merit" (D1273) he was detected by his

voice (D1532). Rabbit called "Cut down the merit"

(D1783.1 .) Anansi's waist was cut in the subsequent

fa ll.

140 141

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 84.

A 2 4 1 6 .5 . WHY RAM SMELLS BAD.

Jamaica: Beckwith 18, No. 15, "Long-Shirt ; "

Anansi, Tacoomah, and Tiger form a musical trio.

After they have lulled the people to sleep, Anansi

steals the shirt from the head man, not knowing it

could talk (D1318.8.1.). Anansi gives it to ram-

goat, who is caught when he jumps into a hole,

leaving one horn exposed. All come and defecate

on him, He later wrings out everything except his

beard. Thus his obnoxious odor.

West Africa/Culture Area V: Clarke, 86.

A 2 4 2 2 .5 . WHY FLY HAS NO VOICE.

Jamaica: Smith41f., "Annancy and Ginger-Fly. "

On a visit to his godparents, Annancy kills Father

Rabbit when his wife goes out. He asks for a pan

and some lard so that he and Ginger-Fly can bury

the corpse. When Ginger-Fly threatens to say that

Rabbit is guilty, Annancy cuts out his tongue. Thus

fly can only say "Vro-vro-vro. "

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 87. 142

A 2426.4.1 FROG'S CROAK.

Jamaica: Beckwith 58, No. 52, "Why Toad Croaks."

Toad had been burned with scalding water by a man

who had announced that his daughter would be won

by the man who cuts down his cotton tree. Toad

had outwitted the man by counteracting the se lf­

replacing chips. (D1565 .1.1.).

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 87.

A2433 .2 .2 . ANIMALS THAT INHABIT WATER.

Jamaica: Milne-Home 127, "Anansi and Alligator."

Alligator's daughter discovers Anansi eating the

eggs despite the scorpions that Alligator had used

as security. Anansi is pursued but succeeds in

crossing the sea and concealing himself in a tree

(K419). Unable to find him. Alligator vows never

to live in a house but in water.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 88.

A2433.3 HAUNTS OF VARIOUS ANIMALS.

Jamaica: Jekyll 38, "Annancy, Puss and Ratta. "

Ratta's trousers rip as he frolicks at a dance given

by Puss and Annancy. He runs into a hole where

he still remains. 143

Jamaica: Jekyll 117, "Calcutta Mbnkey and

Annancy. " Calcutta monkey discovers through his

obeah card that Annancy is stealing his com. He

traces the thief down with his drum. Annancy is

saved by being in Tiger's banana plantation. He

remains there.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 89.

A2494.1 .4 . ENMITY BETWEEN CAT AND RAT.

Jamaica: Bates 121, "Why Cats Hate Rats. "

Cat stole the fowl Nancy had cooked. Rat told

Nancy who arrived just as the chicken stuck in

Cat’s throat. This changed Cat's voice. Since that

time. Cats have hated rats and have killed them.

W est Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 97.

B610.1 GIRL'S ANIMAL LOVER SLAIN BY SPYING RELATIVES

(B 612).

Jamaica: Jekyll 51, No. 29, "The Fish Lover,"

A girl who had rejected all suitors was ordered by

her mother to marry. She goes to the river and cries,

A fish appears to comfort her. She falls in love

with him. Her brother discovers this when he spies

on her. He shoots the fish. 144

Jamaica: Beckwith 89, No. 78, "The Fish Lover. "

A mistreated step-daughter, Lydia, wins the sym­

pathy of a jack fish that promises to help her carry

water if she would marry him. When the family

finds out, the father shoots the fish. Lydia, warned

by one of the fish scales of the death of her lover,

goes home and commits suicide.

Jamaica: Milne-Home 91, "The Girl and The Fish."

Girl's fish lover killed. Fish spirit tells girl to

find fish's heart in tub and to throw it into water.

When she does this, she sinks into water where

she finds her lover transformed into a man. Thus

mermaids (B81).

Jamaica: Jekyll 73, "Gaulin." Here girl marries

gaulin and gaulin is unmasked by brother.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 140.

B651. MARRIAGE TO BEAST IN HUMAN FORM.

Jamaica: Milne-Home 127, "De Lady an* de Bull. "

Disguised bull marries lady in spite of boy's warn­

ings . Animal exposed on wedding day by his horns

and by his desire to run to pasture on hearing the

song sung when he is fed. 145

Jamaica; Beckwith 108f., No. 87, "Bull as

Bridegroom. " Girl marries man over brother's

protest that he is a bull. At wedding feast, boy

sings ditty which transforms bull.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 141.

D1413. MAGIC OBJECT HOLDS PERSON FAST.

Jamaica: Beckwith 41 -4 4 , No. 33, "Fling-a-Mile. "

Anansi is thrown a mile when he sticks his hand in

a hole. He sets up some forks then lures animals

to the hole (K735). When they are thrown to the forks,

Anansi eats them. Monkey, who had watched all,

pushes Anansi's hand into the hole then pulls him

from the forks and eats him.

Jamaica: Jekyll 152, "The Wheeler. " Puss goes

into a tree when he reaches a river he can not cross,

He watches as Anancy sticks his hand into a stump

after eating honey pouring from it and is magically

vaulted a mile through the air. Anancy dupes Pea,

Fowl, and Ratta into the same trap to be caught on

some pegs that Annancy has set up (K735). Puss

induces Annancy to show him how (K715). Puss then

takes home all three to eat. 146

Jamaica: Jekyll 137, "The Old Lady and the Jar."

Somewhat different in that trickster does not operate.

Old woman warned against touching J ar disobeys

and is taken to sea and drowned.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 198.

D 1 4 1 5 .2 .5 . MAGIC FIDDLE CAUSES DANCING.

Jamaica: Beckwith 162, No. 131, "Dancing to

Anansi's Fiddle. " Assono dances to Anansi's fiddle

until he drops. Anansi makes a water cup of his

head.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 199.

HI 184. TASK: CUTTING DOWN TREE WITHOUT SCRATCHING

FOR STINGING INSECTS (scratches surreptitiously

while gesticulating).

Jamaica: Milne-Home 89, "The King and the Ant's

Tree. " Anansi wins the king's daughter by cutting

down a tree without disturbing the Ants. He would

brush himself but would say to the watcher, "I

suppose you think that I am brushing myself, but

I'm not. "

Jamaica: Smith, 7 5 f., "Annancy and Dry-'Kull or

Why Hog has a long Mouth. " A buckra lady offers 147

a cow to the person who could pick her coconuts

and not feel the bites of the wasps. Annancy tells

a story of a cow that is blue here, red there, etc.

Dry 'Kull takes the cow, intimidating Annancy by

threatening to put fever on him. Likewise, he makes

Annancy permit him to live at his house. Finally,

Annancy enlists the help of Bredda Hawk to get rid

of Dry 'Kull. Annancy finds Dry 'Kull's body and

stretches his mouth in an attempt to eat him. At a

swimming party given by the queen, Annancy steals,

hog's mouth left on the shore and deposits his long

mouth. (A2320).

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 198.

J1662. THE CAT'S ONLY TRICK. She saves herself on a

tree. The fox is caught.

Jamaica: Beckwith 229. In reply to the fox's ques­

tion, the cat replies that he has a single trick. The

fox says he has ten times ten. A dog chases them;

the cat runs up a tree; the fox, for all his tricks,

is caught.

RR, Roques, Branche XI, 11473 - 12932; Martin

XII, 1 - 1486. 148

K231.1 . REFUSAL TO PERFORM PART IN MUTUAL AGREE­

MENT.

Jamaica: Beckwith 16, No. 13, "Rat and Anansi-b. "

Rat and Anansi take Tiger's four children but Anansi

does not kill him as agreed. Tiger runs for rat who

darts into a stone hole where he is always found

today. Tiger, realizing Anansi's trick, chases him

into the dry trash. (Of. A2282).

RR, Roques, Branche XVII, 15469 - 16194; Martin

XVI, 1 - 720.

RR, Roques, Branche X, 9253 - 11472; Martin IX,

1 - 2212.

K231.1 .1 . MUTUAL AGREEMENT TO SACRIFICE FAMILY MEMBERS

IN FAMINE. Trickster refuses to carry out his part

of the bargain.

Jamaica: Smith 51 - 54, "Parrot, Tiger an’ Annancy. "

Parrot, Tiger,and Annancy agree to kill their mothers

if the parents cannot tell their new names. Annancy

divulges his name when he goes home on the pretext

of getting an umbrella and some pepper. When he

is found out, he takes his mother to live in a tree.

Tiger and Parrot fool her into letting down a basket.

Annancy arrives just in time to warn her so the 149

impostors are dashed to the ground.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke 352.

K234. TRICKSTER SUMMONS ALL CREDITORS AT ONCE,

PRECIPITATES FIGHT, AND ESCAPES PAYMENT.

Jamaica; Beckwith 55f., No. 45, "The Chain of

Victims . " After borrowing money from several

victims, Anansi has each kill the succeeding one as

he comes to collect. He lures Lion, the last cred­

itor, into breaking his neck.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke 352.

K263. AGREEMENT NOT TO SCRATCH. In talking, the

trickster makes gestures and scratches without

detection.

Jamaica: Jekyll 29, "William Tell owned a tree

that caused death to anyone going under it. He

offered a cow to the person who could cut it down

provided he would not scratch. Annancy, by chang­

ing magic lines, felled the tree.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 355.

K331. GOODS STOLEN WHILE OTHERS SLEEP. 150

Jamaica: Beckwith 11, No. 7, "Eggs and Scorpions."

Anansi got big eggs and Blinkie (firefly) small eggs.

Anansi promises to exchange his eggs for some of

Tiger's sheep meat. He tries to take back the eggs,

but Tiger has a guard of scorpions. Later, he steals

the meat as Tiger sleeps.

RR, Roques, Branche III, 3963 - 4064; Martin XXIV, J 213 - 314.

K335. THEFT.

Jamaica: Beckwith 12, No. 8, "Tiger’s Bone-Hole."

Tiger had a bone hole. He threw bones into it, each

time knocking out Anansi, his wife, and his three

children. Finally all holler and frightened tiger

away. Anansi then steals the provisions.

RR, Roques, Branche XVIII, 16195 - 16980; Martin

XVI, 721 - 1506.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 357f.

K343.1 . OWNER SENT UN ERRAND AND GOODS STOLEN.

Jamaica: Beckwith 46, No. 36, "Horse and Anansi. "

After Anansi and Horse have gathered plantains,

Anansi cooks and eats them while Horse has gone 151

to fetch fire. Goat had watched all, so when

Anansi tries to play the same trick on him, he

stays close and w atches. He punishes Anansi.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 359.

K362. THEFT BY PRESENTING FALSE ORDER TO GUARDIAN.

Jamaica: Beckwith 44f., No. 2, "Gub-gub Peas-2. "

Anansi reads a letter to an illiterate watchman

saying that Anansi is to be tied in a field of peas

until he is full. On the third day, he is caught by

the owner. He induces Lion to substitute for him

(Cf. K842). After Lion has been punished, Anansi

frightens him by making him think his torturers are

returning. (Cf. Kl710).

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke 360.

K527. ESCAPE BY SUBSTITUTING ANOTHER PERSON IN

PLACE OF INTENDED VICTIM.

Jamaica: Jekyll 43, "Snake The Postman." Snake

agrees to become Annancy's postman in return for

a bite from his head each night. Annancy tries to

substitute Rabbit on the second night, but Rabbit

e sc a p e s. Annancy places a pot over his head and this makes Snake's mouth sore. 152

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke 368.

K551. RESPITE FROM DEATH GRANTED UNTIL PARTICULAR

ACT IS PERFORMED.

Jamaica: Beckwith Irf., No. 12a, "Grace Before

Meat. "

Anansi, who confesses not to be very cunning, per­

suades Monkey, who says that he is cunning, to

secure Tiger by lowering his tail in a hole. Monkey

does so; Tiger threatens to eat him. Anansi, from

the top of a tree, advises Tiger to clap with joy for

Monkey's capture. Monkey escapes .

Jamaica: Ibid. , b. "Goat and Anansi. "

Anansi and Tiger go hunting. Tiger catches many

goats, Anansi none. Anansi advises Tiger to clap

his hands and say, "T'ank de Lord." Goats escape.

RR, Roques, Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin

Va, 258 - 1143.

West Africa, Cultural Area V: Clarke, 369.

K581.1 DROWNING PUNISHMENT FOR TURTLE.

Jamaica: Beckwith 53, No. 41, "Turtle's Escape. "

Turtle escapes by telling Anansi that he should be 153

taken out the pot when the water boils, otherwise

he would mash up. Turtle blows bubbles to make

the water appear to be boiling.

W est Africa, Culture Area V; Clarke, 3 71.

K607. 3 . SHAM-DEAD MAN DECEIVED INTO MAKING GESTURE .

Jamaica: Beckwith 65, No. 59c, "Pretending Dead. "

Bear tells Rabbit that Fox is dead. Rabbit says that

when folks die, they cock their feet up and pass

wind, "pooh." Fox does this. Rabbit escapes,

RR, Roques, Branche Vllb, 6069 - 7278; Martin

Va, 258 - 1143.

RR, Roques, Branche X, 9253 - 11472; Maitin DC,

1 - 2212.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Nassau 2, No. 1,

"Do Not Trust Your Friend. "

K649.12. + . CONFEDERATE PERSUADES CAPTOR TO THROW AWAY

DISGUISED (TRANSFORMED) TRICKSTER.

Jamaica: Beckwith 52, No. 40, "Goat's Escape."

Anansi and Assono invite Goat and Dog to a dance

in order to eat them. Dog runs away. Goat turns

to stone (K642.2.). Dog tells Anansi to throw 154

the rock across the river. When Goat resumes his

original form, Assono is so angry that he eats

Anansi.

Jamaica: Milne-Home 128, "Anansi, Tiger, and

Goat. " Anansi and Goat escape from Tiger, the

Goat being thrown across the river as a white stone.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 374.

K713.1. DECEPTION INTO ALLOWING ONESELF TO BE TIED. .

(Of. K852).

Jamaica: Milne-Home 128, "Anansi and Lion."

Anansi tells Lion that his bag contains the bones

of his mother, dead for forty-seven years. He is

going to bury her on the mountain. In reality, the

bag contains fish. When Lion threatens to take the

fish and harm him, Anansi persuades Lion to let

himself be tied to a tree. He gives him a beating.

Afterward, he attends Lion's feast in disguise.

V/est Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 375 .

K824. SFIAM DOCTOR KILLS HIS PATIENTS.

Jamaica: Beckwith 48, No. 38, "Curing the Sick. "

Anansi promises to cure the fishes' mother if they 155 would get him a frying pan and some oil. He eats the mother. The mule takes Anansi to the fish after Anansi had run into his belly. Anansi asks to be put under the trash to be burned but he escapes under a rock.

Jamaica: Ibid., 4 8 f ., No. 38-b, "Curing the

Sick." Anansi asks for yams, fat, etc. to cure the mother of six . After eating her, he leaves, ordering the door to be opened after nine days. Jackass feigns death and catches Anansi and delivers him to the children. They kill him. (Cf. K751).

Jamaica: Smith 44 - 46, "How Annancy went to

Fish Country. " Because of a famine, Annancy goes to fish country dressed as a doctor. To cure the blindness of the Queen Fish, he asks for a frying pan and some oil. He directs the fish to sing when they hear him frying. He leaves, after being rewarded with fish and gold, ordering that the old lady is not to be disturbed for six hours.

He promised Dog half if he would take him over the river. He pretends that the bag has fallen into the river and Dog is eaten by alligators when he goes to retrieve it. Ever since, Annancy has been deceitful. 156

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 380.

K1021.1. TAIL BURIED (HAIR TIED. ) Dupe bound fast and

then attacked.

Jamaica: Beckwith If., No. 1, "Tying Tiger. "

Anansi tells Tiger his fish basket is empty. When

Tiger discovers the truth, he eats all the fish.

Anansi pretends to take lice from Tiger but ties his

hair to a tree as he sleeps. Tiger is shot by a hunter.

RR, Roques, Branche XII, 12933 - 13444;

Martin III, 1 - 510.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 390f.

K1621. TIGER IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING STOLEN BY SHEEP THIEF,

Jamaica: Beckwith 8, No. 5-b, "The Substitute."

After Anansi had received a sheep as restitution for

his dead bird that had "spoiled," he began stealing

a sheep each night. One night. Tiger, dressed in

sheep's clothing, took his stand in the fold. The

substitute sent by Annancy to steal was taken and

punished (K420).

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 400. 157

Kl 818. DISGUISE AS A SICK MAN.

Jamaica: Lewis 291. A man pretended illness to

escape work. (Said he had boil in his mouth). When

the two wives went to the field, he ate all the food.

One wife, on her return, knocked him on the jaw.

A lime flew out of his mouth.

Jamaica: Beckwith 62, No. 57, "Cockroach Stories, "

b. "Feigning Sick." Anansi feigned illness because

he had made a bargain with cockroach to w eed.

Cockroach returns to find him singing. Despite this,

Anansi insists that he has a fever.

W est Africa, Culture Area V; Clarke, 404.

L210. MODEST CHOICE BEST.

Jamaica: Milne-Home 84, "The Little Child and

the Pumpkin Tree. " Found washing an old man's

head, a mother of six was given a coin to bury

under a pumpkin tree. Thereafter, she had all the

pumpkins she wanted. A stray child began eating

the pumpkins and when turned outdoors, immediately

became a man. He was unkind. When he asked for

ten pumpkins, they fell on him at once, crushing

him. 158

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 421.

N 2. EXTRAORDINARY STAKES AT GAMBLING.

Jamaica: Smith 9 f ., "Annancy and Chim-Chim."

Breda Chim-Chim Bird and Breda Annancy agreed that

the loser at cards pay the winner a piece of flesh.

Annancy became very thin. The first time Chim-

Chim lost, he flew away and Annancy tried to catch

him even enlisting Tiger's help. He was unsuccess­

ful.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 442.

Z111. DEATH PERSONIFIED.

Jamaica: Smith 69, "How Annancy Fooled Death. "

Anansi ate all of Death's food when he happened in

the letter's house and Death remained silent. After

sending his daughter to cook for Death (K614), he

found her ring in the oven (H94). Death ch ased him

home. The family ran to the rafters, but only Anansi

was able to save himself. He blinded Death by

dropping into a flour barrel.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 580. CHAPTER VII

TYPE-INDEX OF WEST AFRICAN TAIES HAVING CORRESPONDENCE IN RENARD

55 . THE ANIMALS BUILD A ROAD. The fox as overseer punishes

lazy animals.

The Ewe; E llis, The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave

Coast of West Africa, pp. 175ff., No. 4, "Why the Hare

Runs Away. "

Animals dying of thirst decide to cut off the tips of

their ears, extract the fat, and sell the fat to buy a hoe.

The hare refuses to agree with the plan. After the other

animals have furnished fat to buy the hoe, the hare refuses

to help dig the well. Although the animals station one

animal after the other to keep the hare from getting water,

the hare drives away the watchers, gets a calabash of

water, and then swims in the water. Finally, he is caught

by an image smeared with birdlime. The animals beat him

then free him. He flees to the grass .

RR, Roques, Branche XIII, 13445 - 14166; Martin XXII,

1 - 722. 159 160

56. THE FOX THROUGH SLEIGHT STEALS THE YOUNG MAGPIES.

The fox persuades the magpies into bringing their

young into the house. The young foxes eat the magpies.

The magpies avenge themselves with the help of the dog

who plays dead and kills the fox.

Muntschi: Frobenius, ATIANTIS, XI, (3), 34f. , No. 41,

"Katze (hier Ziberkatze) fangt Ratten. "

The civet cat plays dead. The little rat lays its ear

to the cat's nose. It drums and calls together all the rats.

The rats come. Only the little black mouse will not go.

It sings through its horn that the thing which the rats have

found is not dead. The rats do not heed the warning but

play about the cat. Suddenly, the cat springs up and

kills many rats.

The Ewe: Ellis, The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave

Coast of West Africa, pp. 274f., No. 3, "Why Monkeys

Live in Trees . "

The second incident in this story is Type 56B. A

bush cat asks a snail to announce to all the animals that

he is dead and is to be buried. The bush cat lies down as

if dead. The animals come and dance around him. Sudden­

ly he springs up to catch the monkey but the monkey

escapes to a tree. Monkeys still live in trees. 161 RR, Roques Branche XVII, 15071 -15468, Martin V,

21 - 246 and Va, 247 - 263.

105 . THE CAT’S ONLY TRICK.

Hausa: Landeroin et Tilho, Grammaire et Contes

Haoussas, pp. 191f., "Le chien et le chacal."

RR, Roques, Branche, Illb, 4797 - 5138.

130. THE ANIMALS IN NIGHT QUARTERS.They drive away an

intruder.

Motif B296. Animals go a-journeying. N776. Light

seen from tree lodging place by night leads to adventures.

K335.1 .4. Animals climb on one another's backs and cry

out; frighten robbers. K1161. Animals hidden in various

parts of a house attack owner with their characteristic

powers and kill him when he enters.

RR, Roques Branche IX, 8791-9252; Martin VII, 1 - 468.

On a pilgrimage to Rome to be absolved by the Pope

because of the enormity of his sins. Renard invites two

malcontents, the ram and the ass, to accompany him. At

night, they enter a well-stocked house. The wolf demands

entrance. Renard advises the ass to open the door a crack,

large enough to admit the wolf's head. The ram butts him

silly .

West Africa, Culture-Area V; Klipple, 173. CHAPTER VIII

MOTIF-INDEX OF WEST AFRICAN TALES HAVING CORRESPONDENCE IN RENARD

F547.5.2. ENORMOUS VAGINA. Frobenius , Atlantis 303.

W est Africa, Culture Area V: Clairke, 250.

RR, Roques, Branche XIII, 13445 - 14166; Martin

XXII, 1 - 722.

J1577 DECEPTIVE INVITATION TO A FEAST.

RR, Roques, Branche Illb, 4797 - 5138; Martin

XV, 1 - 364.

Tibert invites Renard to eat sausage, knowing

that Renard cannot climb the cross from where he

issues his invitation.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Nassau, 63, No. 13,

"Unkind Criticism. " Tortoise insults Monkey.

Monkey swears revenge. He invites Tortoise to a

feast but places dishes high so that Tortoise cannot

reach them. Tortoise gets revenge.

162 163

K231.2 . REWARD FOR ACCOMPUSHMENT OF TASK

DECEPTIVELY WITHFIELD.

Yoruba: Ogumefu, Tales of Tortoise, pp. 7ff.,

No. 1, "Tortoise and the King."

The king promises his daughter to the one who

will rid his kingdom of a destructive elephant but

withholds her from the tortoise who succeeds. In

revenge, the tortoise has all the field mice and

elves destroy the ripening crops. Then the tortoise

wins the king's daughter and rids the country of

the pests by feasting them and promising them a

feast twice a year.

RR, Roques Branche XVIII, 15469 - 16194; Martin

XVI, 1-720.

K735 .1 . MATS OVER HOLES AS PITFALL.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 376.

RR, Roques, Branche XV, 14843 - 14980; Martin

XVI, 1 - 138.

K961. FLESH OF CERTAIN ANIMAL ALLEGED TO BE ONLY

CURE FOR DISEASE: ANIMAL TO BE KILLED. Togo:

Cardinall 178, 198; Gold Coast: Christaller,

Z s.f.V ksk. IV 64; Vai: Ellis 238. 164

K961.1. + . SPIDER AGREES TO CURE CHIEF'S ILLNESS IF HE

CAN HAVE TONGUE OF BLIND MAN FOR MEDICINE.

Frobenius: Atlantis XI, 118.

W est Africa, Culture Area V: Klipple, 874.

RR, Roques, Branche XIII, 13445 - 14166;

Martin XXII, 1 - 722.

RR, Roques, Branche XIX, 18177 - 18874;

Martin X, 113 - 1723.

K1821.2 .+ . SPIDER PROMISES TO DELIVER ONE WHITE MAN TO

GOD, SMEARS SELF WITH WHITE CLAY.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 405.

RR, Roques, Branche I, 2261 - 2798; Martin Ib,

2203 - 2748.

K1860. + . SPIDER FEIGNS DEATH TO CONCEAL INTENDED

JOURNEY.

West Africa, Culture Area V; Clarke, 405.

RR, Roques, Branche XII, 12933 - 13444;

Martin III, 1 - 510.

K1955. SHAM PHYSICIAN.

West Africa, Culture Area V: Clarke, 409.

RR, Roques, Branch XIX, 18177 - 18874;

Martin X, 1113 - 1723. CONCLUSION

The collation of Renardian, Jamaican, and West African tale-types shows that the three narrative traditions have two types in common - 60 FOX AND CRANE INVITE EACH OTHER, and 73

BLINDING THE GUARD. Of the two, 73 presents comparisons which are much more interesting. The characters in the Jamaican tale are

Anansi, the trickster, Goat, the dupe, here departing from his traditional characterization in Jamaican tales as a cautious char­ acter, and Tiger, the bully. Anansi tricks Goat into killing Tiger's cubs and then rescues him by advising him to blow salt into Tiger's eyes. The animals are adapted to the physical environment and the means of escape, blowing salt into the pursuer's eyes, is an appropriate local detail. The theme of the tale is the conquest of the strong by the weak, of brawn by brains. The characters in the

West African tale show a similar cultural adaptation. The antelope becomes bankrupt (perhaps a good indication of how episodes reflect changes in economic life) as a result of lavish living and royal entertaining; his friends refuse to lend him a single cowrie; the

Jackal, however, advises him of rich treasure in a hollow tree but rolls a stone against the opening when the antelope enters. Wanting

165 166 to ascertain that the antelope is in the tree before he sets fire to it, the Jackal removes the stone and the antelope escapes by throwing dust into his eyes. The reference to bankruptcy in the same context as the reference to cowries as the monetary stan­ dard provides a good example of continuity in the midst of change.

The theme of the story is similar to that of the Jamaican tale; here the weak outwits the strong. The Renard tale is also culturally adapted to a historical period which was less prudish in dealing with matters of the evacuation of waste than we are today. Renard blinds the eyes of the herdsman by defecating on him. The crude­ ness and obscenity of the act is consistent with the anti-bour­ geois tone one finds throughout the poem. The episode provides a good example of how traditional motifs are manipulated to serve a literary purpose.

The Jamaican and Renardian tales have four types in common

(6, 122, 227, 1653) and the West African and Renardian tales share an equal number (55, 56B, 105, 130). As is to be expected,

Jamaica and W est Africa share more tale types, sixteen in all (72,

125, 175 , 480, 563, 653, 670, 676, 927, 1000, 1074, 1119, 1134,

1419, 1535 , and 1655). No. 175 (THE TAR BABY AND THE RABBIT) is the most widely diffused of all these tales.

With respect to the motifs, the collation shows correspond­ ence between four motifs in the three narrative traditions (K355,

K551, K607.3, and K1021.1). Again, there is a similar cultural adaptation in characters. For example, in K1021.1, the Jamaican 167 tale pits the trickster, Anansi, against the dupe, Tiger, while the Renardian episode pits Renard as a noble whose castle is

under siege against the entire court. Anansi, under pretext of

picking lice from Tiger's hair, binds his hair to a tree. In this

episode, he gets revenge on a bully who had taken from him his

food supply which he, with uncharacteristic industry, had

gathered. In the Renard episode, we have arrayed the panoply and paraphernalia of medieval warfare. In vain the nobles attack

Renard who is well protected in his stronghold, Maupertuis;

ironically, they are caught and bound while sleeping.

The Roman de Renard shares three motifs (J1662, K231.1,

K331) with the Jamaican tales and eight with West African

(F547.5 .2, JI577, K231.2, K735.1 , K961.1. + , K1821.2. + , K1860,

K1955), among these is the obscene episode of the ENORMOUS

VAGINA (F547.5.2). Again, Jamaica and West Africa share the

largest number of motifs, twenty-eight (A2320, A 2355.1.1, A2416.5,

A2422.5, A2426.4.1, A2433.2.2, A2433.3, A2494.1.4, B610.1,

B651, D1413, D1415.2.5, H1184, K231.1.1, K234, K263, K343.1,

K362, K527, K581.1, K649.12.+., K713.1., K824, K1621, K1818,

L210, N2, Z lll). Many of these are typical aetiological accounts

explaining various animal characteristics. W est Africa and Jamaica therefore share a greater number of tale types and motifs than they

do with Renard.

Interesting though these statistics are, their interpretation,

beyond a statement of numerical correspondence, presents 168 difficulties which cannot be resolved here. One can hardly argue for genetic relationships on the basis of these statistics.

It would be obviously fallacious to argue that because two areas share the same tales, one area provided the source. With respect to Jamaican and West African correspondences, one needs to carefully evaluate the rich variety of cultural influences at work in both areas and such an evaluation presents insuperable dif­ ficulties. One can safely say, however, that the Jamaican and

West African correspondences in the mythological motifs which account for animal characteristics clearly show West African provenience. In a more general way, all these correspondences show how homo narrans, out of a common stock of narrative material, fashions tales which speak to his condition and which explain, in ways adequate to his needs, the world into which he has been thrust. BIBLIUGRAPHY

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