The Hussar And The Servant Girl

: The Folk-tales Of The Magyars

The wife of a priest in olden times, it may have been in the

antediluvian world, put all the plates, dishes, and milk-jugs into a

basket and sent the servant to wash them in the brook. While the girl

was washing she saw a cray-fish crawl out of the water, and, as she had

never seen one in her life before, she stood staring at it, and was a

little frightened. It so happened that a hussar rode past on horseback,

and the
irl asked him, "Would you mind telling me, my gallant horseman,

what sort of a God's wonder that yonder is?" "Well, my sister," said the

soldier, "that is a cray-fish." The servant then took courage, and went

near the cray-fish to look at it, and said, "But it crawls!" "But it's a

cray-fish," said the soldier again. "But it crawls," said the servant

abruptly. "But it's a cray-fish," said the soldier a third time. "Well,

my gallant horseman, how can you stand there and tell me that, when I

can see that it crawls?" said the servant. "But, my sister, how can you

stand there and tell me, when I can see that it's a cray-fish?" said the

soldier. "Well, I'm neither blind nor a fool, and I can see quite well

that it's a-crawling," said the servant. "But neither am I blind nor a

fool, and I can see that it is a cray-fish," said the soldier.



The servant got so angry that she dashed her crockery to the ground and

broke it into fragments, crying, in a great rage, "May I perish here if

it is not a-crawling!" The hussar jumped off his saddle, drew his sword,

and cut off his horse's head, saying, "May the executioner cut off my

neck like this if it isn't a cray-fish!" The soldier went his way on

foot, and the servant went home without her ware, and the priest's wife

asked, "Well, where are all the pots?" The servant told her what had

happened between the soldier and her about a cray-fish and a-crawling.

"Is that the reason why you have done all the damage?" said the priest's

wife. "Oh, mistress, how could I give in when I saw quite well that it

was a-crawling; and still that nasty soldier kept on saying it was a

cray-fish?" The wife of the priest was heating the oven, as she was

going to bake, and she got into such a rage that she seized her new fur

jacket, for which she had given a hundred florins, and pitched it into

the oven, saying, "May the flames of the fire burn me like this if you

were not both great fools!" "What is all this smell of burning?" asked

the priest, coming in. Learning what had happened about a cray-fish and

a-crawling, he took his gown and cut it up on the threshold with a

hatchet, saying, "May the executioner cut me into bits like this if the

three of you are not fools!" Then came the schoolmaster (his calf had

got loose and run into the clergyman's yard, and he had come after it to

drive it home): and, hearing what had happened, and why, he caught hold

of a stick, and struck his calf such a blow on the head that it fell

down dead on the spot, exclaiming, "If God will, may the fiery

thunderbolt thus strike me dead if you all four are not fools!"



Then came the churchwarden, and asked what had happened there, and when

he was told he got into such a rage that he picked up the church-box and

dashed it on the ground in the middle of the yard, so that the box was

broken to pieces, and the precious altar-covers and linen were rolling

about on the dirty ground, saying, "May I perish like this, at this very

hour, if the whole five of you are not fools!"



In the meantime the sacristan came in, and, seeing the linen on the

floor, he threw up his hands and said, "Well, I never! whatever's the

matter?" Then they told him what had happened, and why, whereupon he

picked up all the covers and linen and tore them into shreds, saying,

"May the devil tear me to atoms like this if you six are not a parcel of

raving lunatics!"



News of the event soon got abroad, and the whole congregation gathered

together and set the priest's house on fire, crying, "May the flames of

the fire burn us all like this, every one of us, if all the seven were

not fools!"



[1] The zest of this tale turns upon a similarity in the sound of the

words in Magyar for "cray-fish," and "crawling."



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