“While he was sitting there fishing, the boy noticed a turtle crawling upon on a half-submerged log in the river. The turtle alone was not remarkable, but this turtle had a banjo, and, having made himself comfortable, he began picking it and singing. At the sight of such a marvel the boy jumped up and ran home to tell his family what he had seen. His father was a stern kind of man and he gave the boy a sound thrashing for telling stories. The boy stuck to his tale, however, and finally prevailed upon his father to go down to the river and see the wonderful turtle playing the banjo and singing.
“When they got to the river, nothing was in sight but the quiet water and an empty log. The father began to lecture his son again on telling lies and appeared to be warming up for administering another thrashing. Then, all at once, he and the boy heard musical sounds. They turned and looked, and there on the log was the turtle picking his banjo and singing: ‘Live in peace; don’t tell all you see. Live in peace; don’t tell all you see. Live in peace; don’t tell all you see.’ Over and over just those words and no others he sang to the picking of his guitar.”
SOURCE: J. Frank Dobie, ed., Tone the Bell Easy, 48–50.
The two stories present variations of “The Hunter and the Tortoise,” with a master-slave pairing in one case, and a father-son combination in the other. Blending elements of “The Hunter and the Tortoise” with “The Talking Skull,” the first of these two stories offers a cautionary tale about broadcasting the secret lives of animals. Framed as a tale about a vain effort to secure freedom,“What the Frog Said” pits an animal, conciliatory and friendly, against Uncle Mooney, a “dreamer” whose fantasies about freedom are thwarted. The boy in the appended story has better luck, proving to his father the value of “marvels,” “telling stories,” and “lies.”
“What the Frog Said,” from J. Frank Dobie, ed., Tone the Bell Easy. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX. Publications of the Texas Folklore Society 10 (1932): 48–50.
PIERRE JEAN’S TORTOISE
A tortoise was crawling along slowly one day when he came to a garden where many birds were eating. It was the garden of a farmer named Pierre John. The turkey, the chicken, the pigeon, the duck, the gris-gris bird,1 and all the others were there. They invited the tortoise to eat with them. But the tortoise said, “Oh, no. If the farmer who owns this garden should surprise us, you would fly away. But where would I be? He would catch me and beat me.”
The birds said, “Don’t bother your head about that. We will give you feathers. Then you too can fly.” Each of the birds took out some of its feathers and attached them to tortoise, until he looked more like a bird than anything else. So he came and ate with them.
But while they were eating, one of the birds called out: “The farmer is coming! The farmer is coming!” The birds quickly grabbed the feathers they had given the tortoise. They flew away. Tortoise crawled, crawled, crawled, but he was too slow. Pierre John, the farmer, caught him. Pierre John was about to beat him for eating up his garden, but the tortoise began to sing:
Colico Pierre John oh!
Colico Pierre John oh!
If I could I would fly, enhé!
What a tragedy, I have no wings!
The farmer was amazed to hear the tortoise sing. He asked him to sing again. The tortoise sang in his best voice.
“What a curious thing,” Pierre John said. “Who ever heard of a singing tortoise?” He took the tortoise home and put him in a box, which he then placed in the rafters for safekeeping. Then he went down to the city. In the marketplace he found a crowd, and he said: “Who ever heard of a singing tortoise?”
The people answered: “There is no such thing.”
Pierre Jean took money from his pocket. He said: “Who will bet there is no such thing as a singing tortoise?” Some men bet this, some men bet that. There was much excitement.
While they were talking this way, the President came along in his carriage. He stopped and called out, “What is going on?”
When he heard about Pierre John’s singing tortoise, the President said: “This man is a mischief maker. Tortoises don’t sing. I will bet one hundred thousand gourdes2 there is no such thing as a singing tortoise.”
But Pierre Jean replied: “My President, I am a poor farmer. Where would I ever get a hundred thousand gourdes?”
The President said: “Pierre John, you are a rascal. You are trying to make mischief. I will bet the hundred thousand gourdes. If a tortoise talks, I will pay you. But if a tortoise doesn’t talk, I will have you shot.”
This was the way it was in the marketplace. But back in the country Pierre John’s wife heard that her husband had a singing tortoise. So she searched the house until she found him. She asked him to sing.
“I can sing only by the edge of the river,” the tortoise told her. So she took him to the edge of the river.
“My feet must be wet,” the tortoise said. So she placed him in the water by the riverbank. And before she knew what was happening, the tortoise slid into the river and swam away.
Madame Pierre Jean heard the crowd coming up the trail from the marketplace. She was frightened. Her husband’s tortoise was gone. She ran home, and on the way she caught a small lizard. She put the lizard in the box where the tortoise had been and closed the lid. When the crowd from the city arrived, Pierre Jean took them to the box. The President said: “Let the singing begin.”
Pierre Jean called out, “Sing, tortoise!”
The lizard replied from inside the box, “Crik!”3
Pierre Jean called again, “Sing, tortoise, sing!”
And the lizard replied: “Crak!”
The President was angry. He said: “You call that singing? Open the box!” They opened the box. They saw only the small lizard.
The President said: “This man is a vagabond! He thinks we are stupid! Take him down to the river and have him shot!”
So they took Jean Pierre down to the riverbank and stood him against a tree to shoot him. Just at this moment the tortoise stuck his head out of the water and sang:
Colico Pierre John oh!
Colico Pierre John oh!
If I could I would fly, enhé!
What a tragedy, I have no wings!
“Ah! That is my tortoise!” Pierre Jean said. “Listen to him sing!”
And the tortoise sang again:
Colico, oh President!
Colico, oh President!
Uncle Pierre John talks too much, enhé!
Stupidity doesn’t kill a man, but it makes him sweat!
When the President heard that, he laughed. He freed Pierre Jean and paid him the hundred thousand gourdes. The tortoise disappeared. The people went away. But from the tortoise they received the proverb: “Stupidity doesn’t kill a man, but it makes him sweat.”
SOURCE: Harold Courlander, ed. The Piece of Fire and Other Haitian Tales, 29–33.
Harold Courlander recorded this tale in Haiti in the 1960s. He notes in his introduction to the anthology that Haitian stories are for the most part syncretic, pieced together from lore of the Old World (Europe and Africa) and the New (the Americas). This particular tale is clearly inspired by African tales about singing tortoises, but encoded with an indigenous social setting and characters. Among Courlander’s informants for Haitian tales were Voluska Saintville, Wilfred Beauchamps, Lydia Augustin, Libera Borderau, Jean Ravel Pintro, Télisman Charles, Maurice Morancy, and Hector Charles. Courlander does not name the teller of “Jean Pierre’s Tortoise.”
“Pierre Jean’s Tortoise,” from Harold Courlander, ed., The Piece of Fire and Other Haitian Tales, 1964. Reprinted by permission of the Emma Courlander Trust.
Click here to advance to the next section of the text.
1 gris-gris bird: In Haitian Vodou, the gris-gris is an amulet used to cast spells and secure good luck. It is also used as a way to gain access to the gods.
2 gourdes: Haitian unit of currency.
3 “Crik!”: Haitian storytellers often announce the beginning of a story by sa
ying “Crick!” to which the listeners reply “Crack!”
THE TALKING TURTLE
One time there was a fellow named Lissenbee, and the trouble was that he couldn’t keep nothing to himself. Whenever anybody done something that wasn’t right, Lissenbee would run and blab it all over town. He didn’t tell no lies, he just told the truth, and that’s what made it so bad. Because all the people believed whatever Lissenbee said, and there wasn’t no way a fellow could laugh it off.
If he seen one of the county officers going to a woman’s house when her husband was not home, Lissenbee would tell it right in front of the courthouse, and so there would be hell to pay for two families. Or maybe some citizens liked to play a little poker in the livery barn, but there wasn’t no way to keep it quiet, on account of that goddam Lissenbee. And when the Baptist preacher brought some whiskey home, there was Lissenbee a-hollering before the preacher could get the keg out of his buggy. After a while the boys was afraid to swipe a watermelon, for fear old blabbermouth Lissenbee would tell everybody who done it.
The last straw was the time Lissenbee found a turtle in the road. It was bigger than the common kind, so he stopped to look at it. The old turtle winked its red eyes, and it says, “Lissenbee, you talk too damn much.” Lissenbee jumped four foot high, and then just stood there with his mouth a-hanging open. He looked all round, but there wasn’t anybody in sight. “It must be my ears have went back on me!” says he. “Everybody knows terrapins is dumb.” The old turtle winked its red eyes again. “Lissenbee, you talk too damn much,” says the turtle. With that Lissenbee spun round like a top, and then he lit out for town.
When Lissenbee come to the tavern and told the people about the turtle that could talk, they just laughed in his face. “You come with me,” says he, “and I’ll show you!” So the whole crowd went along, but when they got there the old turtle didn’t say a word. It looked just like any other turtle, only bigger than the common kind. The people was mad because they had walked away out there in the hot sun for nothing, so they kicked Lissenbee into the ditch and went back to town. Pretty soon Lissenbee set up, and the old turtle winked its red eyes. “Didn’t I tell you?” says the turtle. “You talk too damn much.”
Some people around here say the whole thing was a joke, because it ain’t possible for a turtle to talk. They claim some fellow must have hid in the bushes and throwed his voice, so it just sounded like the turtle was a-talking. Everybody knows that those medicine-show doctors can make a wooden dummy talk good enough to fool almost anybody. There was a boy here in town that tried to learn how out of a book, but he never done no good at it. The folks never found nobody in these parts that could throw his voice like that.
Well, no matter if it was a joke or not, the story sure fixed old blabbermouth Lissenbee. The folks just laughed at his tales after that, and they would say he better go talk to the turtles about it.
SOURCE: Vance Randolph, ed. The Talking Turtle and Other Ozark Folk Tales, 3–5.
Vance Randolph began collecting Ozark tales in the 1920s, and he tried to record each story “as accurately as possible, without any polishing or embellishment.” He wrote with nostalgia about the Ozark Mountain people, who lack “material wealth” but have inherited “a leisurely way of life.” “There is still time for conversation. . . . Every hilltop has its tradition, every hollow is full of tales and legends.” The tale about the talking turtle was told by George E. Hastings. “Reports of this story from English-speaking white informants are rare,” we learn in the notes to the story added by the folklorist Herbert Halpert. “The story is usually told by Negroes,” Halpert adds, “and I believe it is of African origin.”
“The Talking Turtle,” from Vance Randolph, ed., The Talking Turtle and Other Ozark Folk Tales, 1957. Copyright © 1957 Vance Randolph. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
JOHN AND THE BLACKSNAKE
One time John went down to the pond to catch him a few catfish. He put his line in the water, and cause the sun was warm John began to doze off a little. Soon as his head went down a little, he heard someone callin’ his name. “John, John,” like that. John jerked up his head and looked around, but he didn’t see no one. Two-three minutes after that, he heard it again. “John, John.” He looked to one side and the other. He looked down at the water and he looked up in the air. And after that he looked behind him and saw a big old blacksnake settin’ on a stone pile.
“Who been callin’ my name?” says John.
“Me,” the blacksnake tell him. “It’s me that called you.”
John didn’t feel too comfortable talkin’ to a blacksnake, and he feel mighty uneasy about a blacksnake talkin’ to him. He say, “What you want?”
“Just called your name to be sociable,” blacksnake tell him.
John look all around to see was anyone else there. “How come you pick me to socialize with?”
“Well,” blacksnake say, “you is the only one here, and besides that, John, ain’t we both black?”
“Let’s get it straight,” says John, “they’s two kinds of black, yours and mine, and they ain’t the same thing.”
“Black is black,” blacksnake say, “and I been thinkin’ on it quite a while. You might say as we is kin.”
That was too much for John. He jumped up and sold out, went down the road like the Cannonball Express. And comin’ down the road they was a wagon with Old Boss in it. Old Boss stop and wait till John get there. He say, “John, I thought you was down to the pond fishin’ for catfish?”
John looked over his shoulder, said, “I was, but I ain’t.”
Old Boss say, “John, you look mighty scared. What’s your hurry?”
John say, “Old Boss, when blacksnakes get to talkin’, that’s when I get to movin’.”
“Now, John,” Old Boss say, “you know that blacksnakes don’t talk.”
“Indeed I know it,” John say, “and that’s why, in particular, I’m a-goin’, ’cause this here blacksnake is doin’ what you say he don’t.”
“ ’Pears to me as you been into that liquid corn again,” Old Boss say. “I’m disappointed in you, John. You let me down.”
“It ain’t no liquid corn,” John say. “It’s worse than liquid corn. It’s a big old blacksnake settin’ on a rock pile down by the pond.”
“Well,” Old Boss say, “let’s go take a look.”
So Old Boss went with John back to the pond, and the blacksnake was still there settin’ on the stones.
“Tell him,” John said to the blacksnake. “Tell Old Boss what you told me.”
But the blacksnake just set there and didn’t say a word.
“Just speak up,” John say, “tell him what I hear before.”
Blacksnake didn’t have a word to say, and Old Boss tell John, “John, you got to stay off that corn. I’m mighty disappointed in you. You sure let me down.” After that Old Boss got in his wagon and took off.
John looked mean at the blacksnake. He say, “Blacksnake, how come you make me a liar?”
Blacksnake say, “John, you sure let me down too. I spoke with you and nobody else. And the first thing you do is go off and tell everything you know to a white man.”
SOURCE: Harold Courlander, ed., A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore, 441–42.
A variant of tales about talking skulls and singing tortoises, this story meditates on the racial divide, testing loyalties and allegiances, with a blacksnake that insists on solidarity and a slave that disavows color lines and confides in a white Old Boss rather than taking blacksnake in as his confidant. This snake is less treacherous than sociable and trusting, showing his moral superiority by contrast to Old Boss, who brands John a liar.
“John and the Blacksnake,” from Harold Courlander, ed., A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore, 1976. Reprinted by permission of the Emma Courlander Trust.
FARMER MYBROW AND THE FAIRIES
Farmer Mybrow was one day looking about for a suitable piece of land to convert into a field. He wished to grow
corn and yams. He discovered a fine spot, close to a great forest—which latter was the home of some fairies. He set to work at once to prepare the field.
Having sharpened his great knife, he began to cut down the bushes. No sooner had he touched one than he heard a voice say, “Who is there, cutting down the bushes?” Mybrow was too much astonished to answer. The question was repeated. This time the farmer realized that it must be one of the fairies, and so replied, “I am Mybrow, come to prepare a field.” Fortunately for him the fairies were in great good humor. He heard one say, “Let us all help Farmer Mybrow to cut down the bushes.” The rest agreed. To Mybrow’s great delight, the bushes were all rapidly cut down—with very little trouble on his part. He returned home, exceedingly well pleased with his day’s work, having resolved to keep the field a secret even from his wife.
Early in January, when it was time to burn the dry bush, he set off to his field, one afternoon, with the means of making a fire. Hoping to have the fairies’ assistance once more, he intentionally struck the trunk of a tree as he passed. Immediately came the question, “Who is there, striking the stumps?” He promptly replied, “I am Mybrow, come to burn down the bush.” Accordingly, the dried bushes were all burned down, and the field left clear in less time than it takes to tell it.
Next day the same thing happened. Mybrow came to chop up the stumps for firewood and clear the field for digging. In a very short time his faggots and firewood were piled ready, while the field was bare.
So it went on. The field was divided into two parts—one for maize and one for yams. In all the preparations—digging, sowing, planting—the fairies gave great assistance. Still, the farmer had managed to keep the whereabouts of this field a secret from his wife and neighbors.
The Annotated African American Folktales Page 24
