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The Three Thieves: A Medieval French Tale
| Article
# : |
18536 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1991 |
1,213 Words |
| Author
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Josepha Sherman
Josepha Sherman writes short fiction and folklore-based novels
for adults and young people. Her writing credits include two
fantasy novels based on Slavic folklore, The Shining Falcon
and The Deathless, and several children's books, including
Vassilisa the Wise and The Dark Gods. |
There was a farmer who fell in with thieves. Brothers those thieves were, Haimet and Barat, and wise in the ways of their trade. Now, it happened that one day the three, Haimet and Barat and Farmer Travers, were passing through a wood when Haimet saw a bird on her nest.
"Watch how fine a thief I am!" he boasted. Climbing slyly up the tree, he just as slyly stole the eggs right out from under the mother bird without her stirring a feather.
"Too easily done!" taunted Barat. "A true thief could not only steal away the eggs but replace them in the nest."
So Haimet, smarting from his brother's jibe, climbed the tree, slid the eggs under the nesting bird, and came back down again. "So now who's the finest thief?"
"Not you, dear brother!" Barat laughed. "Look down at yourself."
For while Haimet had been returning the eggs to the nest, Barat had stolen the breeches right off his legs!
When Farmer Travers saw this, his heart failed him. I can never be a thief as fine as this pair, he told himself, and slunk away home to wife and farm.
It was nearing the wintertime, and in the days that followed, Travers slew a pig and hung a side of bacon from a rafter in his house. Ah, but what Travers did not know was that Haimet and Barat, curious about their once would-be comrade, had secretly followed him. As soon as Travers went out to his fields, Haimet and Barat paid his good wife a friendly visit. But their sharp eyes missed nothing that was in that farmhouse. They were gone when Travers returned to hear his wife's tale:
"They called you friend, husband. But I liked not how their eyes stared at that good side of bacon!"
"Haimet and Barat," muttered Travers. "But they shan't have that bacon!"
So Travers cut the rope, let the bacon fall to the earthen floor, and covered it with a basket. "Sometimes the simplest hiding place is the best," he chuckled.
That night, though, he took to worrying about the two thieves.
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