Atondido Stories
The Story of a Farmer Who Remembered What His Grand-
mother Told Him
Once upon a time there was a poor farmer who lived in a
wretched tumble-down cottage beyond the village and whose
farm consisted of a miserable little field no bigger than your
hand. His children were ragged and hungry and his wife was al-
ways worried over getting them enough to eat.
Yet the farmer was a clever fellow with a quick shrewd wit
and people used to say that he'd be able to fool the devil if ever
he had the chance. One day the chance came.
His wife had sent him into the forest to gather a bundle of
faggots. Suddenly without any warning a young man with black
face and shiny eyes stood before him.
"It's a devil, of course," the farmer told himself. "But even so
there's no use being frightened."
So he wished the devil a civil good-day and the devil, who
was really a very simple fellow indeed, returned his greeting
and asked him what he was doing in the forest.
Now the farmer suddenly remembered that his grandmother
had once told him devils were afraid of lime trees because the
bast from lime trees is the one thing in the world they are unable
to break. That's why, when you catch a devil, you must tie his
hands together with bast.
So the farmer, recalling what his grandmother had said, re-
marked casually:
"Oh, I'm looking for a lime tree. I want to strip off some bast.
Then I'm going after them "—and when he said them he paused
significantly—"and tie them hand and foot."
He peeped at the devil out of the corner of his eye and saw
that the devil had turned almost white under his black skin.
395