"The Master Thief" is a Norwegian

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 ...

collected by Peter Chr. Asbjørnsen and

Jørgen Moe Jørgen Engebretsen Moe (22 April 1813–27 March 1882) was a Norwegian folklorist, bishop, poet, and author. He is best known for the '' Norske Folkeeventyr'', a collection of Norwegian folk tales which he edited in collaboration with Pe ...

. The

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...

included a shorter variant as tale 192 in their fairy tales.

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 o ...

included it in ''

The Red 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 ...

''.

George Webbe Dasent Sir George Webbe Dasent, D. C. L. (1817–1896) was a British translator of folk tales and contributor to ''The Times''. Life Dasent was born 22 May 1817 at St. Vincent, British West Indies, the son of the attorney general, John Roche Dasent. Hi ...

included a translation of the tale in ''Popular Tales From the Norse''. It is Aarne–Thompson type 1525A, ''Tasks for a Thief''.

Synopsis

A poor cottager had nothing to give his three sons, so he walked with them to a crossroad, where each son took a different road. The youngest went into a great woods, and a storm struck, so he sought shelter in a house. The old woman there warned him that it is a den of robbers, but he stayed, and when the robbers arrived, he persuaded them to take him on as a servant. They set him to prove himself by stealing an ox that a man brought to market to sell. He took a shoe with a silver buckle and left it in the road. The man saw it and thought it would be good if only he had the other, and went on. The son took the shoe and ran through the countryside, to leave it in the road again. The man left his ox and went back to find the other, and the son drove the ox off. The man went back to get the second ox to sell it, and the robbers told the son that if he stole that one as well, they would take him into the band. The son hanged himself up along the way, and when the man passed, ran on and hanged himself again, and then a third time, until the man was half-convinced that it was witchcraft and went back to see if the first two bodies were still hanging, and the son drove off his ox. The man went for his third and last ox, and the robbers said that they would make him the band's leader if he stole it. The son made a sound like an ox bellowing in the woods, and the man, thinking it was his stolen oxen, ran off, leaving the third behind, and the son stole that one as well. The robbers were not pleased with his leading the band, and so they all left him. The son drove the oxen out, so they returned to their owner, took all the treasure in the house, and returned to his father. He decided to marry the daughter of a local squire and sent his father to ask for her hand, telling him to tell the squire that he was a Master Thief. The squire agreed, if the son could steal the roast from the spit on Sunday. The son caught three hares and released them near the squire's kitchen, and the people there, thinking it was one hare, went out to catch it, and the son got in and stole the roast. The Red Fairy Book-077

The priest made fun of him, and when the Master Thief came to claim his reward, the squire asked him to prove his skill further, by playing some trick on the priest. The Master Thief dressed up as an angel and convinced the priest that he was come to take him to heaven. He dragged the priest over stones and thorns and threw him into the goose-house, telling him it was purgatory, and then stole all his treasure. The squire was pleased, but still put off the Master Thief, telling him to steal twelve horses from his stable, with twelve grooms in their saddles. The Master Thief prepared and disguised himself as an old woman to take shelter in the stable, and when the night grew cold, drank brandy against it. The grooms demanded some, and he gave them a drugged drink, putting them to sleep, and stole the horses. The squire put him off again, asking if he could steal a horse while he was riding it. The Master Thief said he could, and disguised himself as an old man with a cask of mead, and put his finger in the hole, in place of the tap. The squire rode up and asked him if he would look in the woods, to be sure that the Master Thief did not lurk there. The Master Thief said that he could not, because he had to keep the mead from spilling, and the squire took his place and lent him his horse to look. The squire put him off again, asking if he could steal the sheet off his bed and his wife's shift. The Master Thief made up a dummy like a man and put it at the window, and the squire shot at it. The Master Thief let it drop. Fearing talk, the squire went to bury it, and the Master Thief, pretending to be the squire, got the sheet and the shift on the pretext they were needed to clean the blood up. The squire decided that he was too afraid of what the thief would steal next, and let him marry his daughter.

Analysis and formula

"The Master Thief" is classified in the

Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index (ATU Index) is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies. The ATU Index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: originally composed in German by ...

as ATU 1525 and subtypes. Folklorist

Stith Thompson Stith Thompson (March 7, 1885 – January 10, 1976) was an American folklorist: he has been described as "America's most important folklorist". He is the "Thompson" of the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index, which indexes folktales by type, and the ...

argues the story can be found in tale collections from Europe, Asia and all over the world. Folklorist

Joseph Jacobs Joseph Jacobs (29 August 1854 – 30 January 1916) was an Australian folklorist, translator, literary critic, social scientist, historian and writer of English literature who became a notable collector and publisher of English folklore. Jacobs ...

wrote a reconstruction of the tale, with the same name, in his ''Europa's Fairy Book'', following a formula he specified in his commentaries. The motif of the impossible thievery can be found in a story engraved in a Babylonian tablet with the tale of the ''

Poor Man of Nippur The Poor Man of Nippur is an Akkadian story dating from around 1500 BC. It is attested by only three texts, only one of which is more than a small fragment. There was a man, a citizen of Nippur, destitute and poor, Gimil-Ninurta was his name, a ...

''. Joseph Jacobs, in his book ''More Celtic Fairy Tales'', mentions an Indian folkloric character named "Sharaf, the Thief" (''Sharaf Tsúr''; or ''Ashraf Chor''). Folklorist and scholar

Richard Dorson Richard Mercer Dorson (March 12, 1916 – September 11, 1981) was an American folklorist, professor, and director of the Folklore Institute at Indiana University. Dorson has been called the "father of American folklore"Nichols, Amber M.Richard M. ...

cited the opinions of two scholars about the origins of the tale type: Alexander H. Krappe suggested an Egyptian origin for the tale, while

W. A. Clouston William Alexander Clouston (1843 – 23 October 1896) was a Scottish 19th century folklorist from Orkney.Straparola in his '' The Facetious Nights''. *

Ralph Steele Boggs Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf"). The most common forms ...

, following

Johannes Bolte Johannes Bolte (11 February 1858 – 25 July 1937) was a German folklorist. A prolific writer, he wrote over 1,400 publications, including monographs, articles, notes and book reviews. Works * ''Zeugnisse zur Geschichte unserer Kinderspiele'', ''Ze ...

and Jiri Polívka's ''Anmerkungen'' (1913), lists Spanish

picaresque novel The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...

Guzmán de Alfarache ''Guzmán de Alfarache'' () is a picaresque novel written by Mateo Alemán and published in two parts: the first in Madrid in 1599 with the title , and the second in 1604, titled '. The works tells the first person adventures of a ''picaro'', a ...

'' (1599) as a predecessor of the tale-type. * The Grimm Brothers' version begins with the son's arrival home, and the squire sets him the tasks of stealing the horses from the stable, the sheet and his wife's wedding ring, and the parson and clerk from the church as tests of skill, or he would hang him. The thief succeeds and leaves the country. * German scholar

Johann Georg von Hahn Johann Georg von Hahn (11 July 1811 – 23 September 1869) was an Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian diplomat, philologist and specialist in Albanian history, language and culture. Hahn was born in Frankfurt am Main. In 1847, he was named Aust ...

compared 6 variants he collected in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

to the tale in the Brothers Grimm's compilation. * 19th century poet and novelist

Clemens Brentano Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano (also Klemens; pseudonym: Clemens Maria Brentano ; ; 9 September 1778 – 28 July 1842) was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German Romanticism. He was the uncle, via his brother Christian, of Franz ...

collected a variant named ''Witzenspitzel''. His work was translated as ''Wittysplinter'' and published in ''The Diamond Fairy Book''. * Variants of the tale and subtypes of the ATU 1525 are reported to exist in American and English compilations. * A scholarly inquiry by Italian ''Istituto centrale per i beni sonori ed audiovisivi'' ("Central Institute of Sound and Audiovisual Heritage"), produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, found the existence of variants and subtypes of the tale across Italian sources, grouped under the name ''Mastro Ladro''. * Northern India folklore also attests the presence of two variants of the tale, this time involving a king's son as the "Master-Thief". * Irish folklorist Patrick Kennedy also listed ''Jack, The Cunning Thief'' as another variant of the ''Shifty Lad'' and, by extension, of ''The Master Thief'' cycle of stories. * Another Irish variant, ''The Apprentice Thief'', was published anonymously in compilation ''The Royal Hibernian Tales''. In a third homonymous Irish variant, the king challenges young Jack, son of Billy Brogan, to steal three things without the King noticing. * In the Irish tale ''How Jack won a Wife'', the Master Thief character, Jack, fulfills the squire's challenges to prove his craft and marries the squire's daughter. * Svend Grundtvig collected a Danish variant, titled ''Hans Mestertyv''. * According to Professor Bronislava Kerbelytė, the story of the Master Thief is reported to contain several variants in

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

: 284 (two hundred and eighty-four) variants of the AT 1525A, "The Crafty Thief", and 216 (two hundred and sixteen) variants of AT 1525D, "Theft by Distracting Attention", both versions with and without contamination from other tale types. * Professor Andrejev noted that the tale type 1525A, "The Master Thief", was one of "the most populär tale types" across Ukrainian sources, with 28 variants, as well as "in the Russian material", with 19 versions. * Folklorist

argued that similarities between the European "Master Thief" tales and Native American trickster tales led to the merging of motifs, and the borrowing may have originated from French Canadian tales. * Anthropologist

Elsie Clews Parsons Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons (November 27, 1875 – December 19, 1941) was an American anthropologist, sociologist, folklorist, and feminist who studied Native American tribes—such as the Tewa and Hopi—in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mex ...

collected variants of the tale in Caribbean countries.Parsons, Elsie Worthington Clews. ''Folk-lore of the Antilles, French And English''. Part 3. New York: American Folk-lore Society. 1943. pp. 215–217.

Modern adaptations

In a storybook and cassette in the

Once Upon a Time "Once upon a time" is a stock phrase used to introduce a narrative of past events, typically in fairy tales and folk tales. It has been used in some form since at least 1380 (according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'') in storytelling in t ...

Fairy Tale series, the Squire is called the Count and the tasks he gives the thief are to steal his horse, the bedsheet and the Parson and Sexton from the church. When he has succeeded, the Count tells him if he changes his ways, he will make him Governor of the town. The Thief agrees, promising never to steal anything again.

References

Bibliography

* Cosquin, Emmanuel. ''Contes populaires de Lorraine comparés avec les contes des autres provinces de France et des pays étrangers, et précedés d'un essai sur l'origine et la propagation des contes populaires européens''. Tome II. Deuxiéme Tirage. Paris: Vieweg. 1887. pp. 274–281.

External links