Untitled - Memorial University's Digital Archives - Memorial ...

223
burying her husband and son, a deed for which the grateful spirits pay back his kindness:
. Now that was the spirits of the two men that he just buried the night before, now they
was going 10 help Jack out now...."1 The morality of Marchen is that of the egalitarian
and self-supponing community_ Those failing to follow its values, such as of sharing,
lose their accumulated possessions. a message which runs in "jocular" as well as "ordinary
tales." The rich are shown to make their fortune on the poor, who, winy as much as Ihe
others are stupid, get even with them by exploiting their credulousness:
Well now they had to bury the old woman now. Well now them
times, see, they buried them, if it was a rich man they had 10 put so much
money in along with them, see, for to bury them 'cause they claimed if
they didn't. well they, they'd get up again....2
In local Miirchen as in legends of the. good supernatural, it is only the innocent dead
who come back; the others. even when murdered by the hand of those whom Ihey
lonnemcd, are dead and gone. Jack, slarved by his employer and the laller's mother, kills
her in his absence and successively offers to "bury her richer" afler digging her up--wilh
Ihe money-- and putting up her corpse in places to frighlen her son. The money Ihus
acquired serves to restore a just balance: It••• I've made a poor man of your brother and
I'm going to make a rich man of you. I'm going 10 leave you, you can have allihe money.
I'm going to leave you and get some money for meself. ..."3
Jack is on the road again, and the tale takes a new stan borrowing much of its laller
half from the previous type. He comes to a haunled and therefore deserted place, sees an
"old man" coming through a door while earing his supper, and answers his question afler
Jack has volunteered help:
... I'll talk to you now, he said, that's the three men killed me. lie said,
that's the three men killed me, now they come in here tonight, they would
have killed you, Ihey would have killed you, Ihat's what they come for.
And now, he said, Jack, I got a big chest of money in this house and
there's nobody knows where it's to. He said, there's nobody can find ii,
he said, 'cause you're the only man could stop here. He said, everyone
have been here. Well, they've all leaved....4
I MUNFLA 65·12/C214, p. 3 (AT 5068).
2MUNFLA 71·50/C968·9 (AT 1536A)/(AT 326·).
3MUNFLA 71-50/C968-9 (AT 1536A)/(AT 326·).
4MUNFLA 71·50/C968-9 (AT 1536A)/(AT 326·).