The Skriker Actor Packet

Yallery Brown, the brownie tells the farm worker that he wants to repay him by offering a wish or favor.
The man asks Yallery Brown to do all of his farm chores for him. Yallery Brown agrees under the
condition that the farmer never thank him. After a while of allowing Yallery to magically control the tools
and labor, the farm worker finds that other farmers are getting less work done. Their tools have been
ruined and their work impossible to accomplish. When finally asking Yallery Brown to let him do the
work for himself again, the farmer accidentally thanks Yallery Brown. Because the farmer broke his
promise, Yallery Brown curses him to a life of poverty.
Excerpt from Joseph Jacobs’ Yallerybrown:
“And there in the hole lay a tiddy thing on its back, blinking up at the moon and at him. 'Twas no bigger
than a year-old baby, but it had long cotted hair and beard, twisted round and round its body so that you
couldn't see its clothes; and the hair was all yaller and shining and silky, like a bairn's; but the face of it
was old and as if 'twere hundreds of years since 'twas young and smooth. Just a heap of wrinkles, and two
bright black eyne in the midst, set in a lot of shining yaller hair; and the skin was the colour of the freshturned
earth in the spring -- brown as brown could be, and its bare hands and feet were brown like the
face of it.”
Tales, Stories, and Resources:
• “The Tale of Yallery Brown” (as retold by Joseph Jacobs)
http://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/meft/meft07.htm
• “Yallery Brown” (original version in full Lincolnshire dialect told by M.C. Balfour)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1253076 pg. 264-271
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