"Master and Pupil" is a Danish
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
.
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University ...
included it in ''
The Pink Fairy Book
''The Langs' Fairy Books'' are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional stories for children published between 1889 and 1913 by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne. The best known books of the series are the 12 collections ...
''.
[Andrew Lang, ''The Pink Fairy Book'']
"Master and Pupil"
/ref>
It is Aarne-Thompson type 325, "The Magician and His Pupil".
Synopsis
A boy trying to get himself hired is asked by a man if he can read, even though his duties would only be to dust the man's books. The boy replies that he can, and the man rejects him. The boy runs ahead of the man and asks again for a job, this time successfully after claiming that he cannot read. The boy is set to work and surreptitiously reads the books while dusting them. As his master is a wizard, the boy's reading teaches him some magic and he is then able to transform into any animal.
Later, the boy runs away and returns to his parents where he assists them by turning into a horse, being sold by his father, turning back into a boy, and escaping back to his parents.
The wizard hears about this and goes to the father to buy the boy/horse. He then attempts to have a red-hot nail driven into the horse's mouth, as this will stop the transformation. The boy turns into a dove to escape but the wizard turns himself into a hawk to chase him. Then the boy transforms into a gold ring and drops into a girl's lap. The wizard attempts to purchase the ring but the girl refuses as it has fallen from heaven. The wizard continues to offer ever increasing amounts of money until the boy, in fear, transforms into a grain of barley. The wizard turns into a hen intending to eat the boy, but the grain changes into a polecat which then bites the hen's head off.
The polecat then transforms back into the boy who marries the girl and does no more magic.
Commentary
While "Farmer Weathersky
Farmer Weathersky ( no, Bonde Værskjegg) is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Chr. Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in ''Norske Folkeeventyr''.
Andrew Lang included it in ''The Red Fairy Book'' as "Farmer Weatherbeard".
It is Aarne–Thomps ...
" and "The Thief and His Master
"The Thief and His Master" is a German fairy tale (original title: "De Gaudeif un sien Meester") collected by the Brothers Grimm in ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' as tale number 68. In the first edition (published on 20 December 1812) there was another f ...
" include the transformation chase of a pupil from his master, in those tales, the boy is actually a pupil, and not learning on the sly as in this one.
See also
*The Magic Book
The Magic Book is a Danish fairy tale collected by Ewald Tang Kristensen in '' Eventyr fra Jylland''. Andrew Lang included it in ''The Orange Fairy Book'', listing it as translated by Mrs. Skavgaard-Pedersen.
Synopsis
A boy called set out to seek ...
*Maestro Lattantio and His Apprentice Dionigi Maestro Lattantio and His Apprentice Dionigi is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giovanni Francesco Straparola in '' The Facetious Nights of Straparola''.
This tale plays off a long tradition of conflict between apprentices and their maste ...
References
{{reflist
Danish fairy tales
Fiction about shapeshifting
ATU 300-399