The farmer first ordered him to give him his history
- Date of account
- Nineteenth-century comparative survey
- Source
- The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
- Reference
- The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries · selected passage 204
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English with translated traditional material
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The farmer first ordered him to give him his history
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThe farmer first ordered him to give him his history. The black one replied, "My dear friend you know it just as well as I, or else you never had had me here. You see I happened by chance to come too near the cross, a thing we little people may not do, and there I was held fast and obliged instantly to let my body become visible; so, then, that people might not recognise me, I turned myself into an insect. But you found me out. For when we get fastened to holy or consecrated things, we never can get away from them unless a man takes us off. That, however, does not happen without plague and annoyance to us, though, indeed, to say the truth, the staying fastened there is not over pleasant. And so I struggled against you, too, for we have a natural aversion to let ourselves be taken into a man's hand." "Ho, ho! is that the tune with you?" cried the farmer: "you have a natural aversion, have you? Believe me, my sooty friend, I have just the same for you; and so you shall be away without a moment's delay, and we will lose no time in making our bargain with each other.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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