Jack and His Master (Campfire Story)

There was once a poor woman with three sons. The two oldest were sharp, clever fellows. But the youngest they called Jack the Fool, because they thought he was a simpleton.

The oldest son went off to look for work. And he came back a year later, limping, thin, and miserable. He'd gone to work for the Gray Churl of the Townland of Mischance. And the bargain was this: whoever said first that he was sorry for the bargain would lose a strip of skin from his back, an inch wide, shoulder to hip. And if it was the servant, he'd get no wages at all. And the Gray Churl had starved him and worked him so hard that one day, in a temper, he'd said, 'Yes, I'm sorry!' And that was that.

So the second son went off to get revenge. And a year later he came home just the same. Limping, and penniless, and with a strip off his back.

And then Jack the Fool said, 'My turn.'

So Jack went to the Gray Churl and hired on for a year, for twenty pounds, on the same terms. 'And one more thing,' said the Churl. 'If you refuse to do anything I tell you, you lose a month's wages.'

'That's fair,' said Jack. 'And if you stop me doing something after you told me to do it, or blame me for doing what you told me, you pay me a month's wages extra.'

'Agreed,' said the Churl.

The first day, Jack got hardly anything to eat. So the second day, he walked into the kitchen just as the cook was taking the master's roast goose off the fire. And he cut off half of it and ate it. In came the master, furious.

'Well, master, you're to feed me, aren't you? SORRY?'

'No,' said the master, through his teeth. 'Not at all.'

The next day, Jack was sent to cut peat out on the bog. 'I'll save time,' he said to the mistress. 'Give me my dinner now, so I don't have to walk back.' So she gave him his dinner, and he ate it. 'And my supper too, so I can sleep out there and start early.' So she gave him his supper, and he ate that too, right there. Then he went to the master. 'What do servants do here after supper?'

'Nothing. Go to bed.'

So Jack went up to the loft and went to bed. At nine o'clock in the morning.

'You scoundrel! What do you think you're doing?'

'You told me, master. After supper, bed. Do you blame me?'

'Yes, I do!'

'Then that's a month's wages, please. SORRY?'

'No! No, I'm not sorry. I'll pay you after your nap.'

Next, the master told Jack to hold the plough. So Jack held onto the plough with both arms, and dug in his heels, and pulled back against the horses, while the boy whipped them on, and the plough skimmed along the top of the ground, not cutting a single furrow.

'What are you doing?'

'Holding the plough, like you said. Do you blame me? SORRY?'

The master bit his tongue so hard it nearly bled. 'Not at all.'

Then the master sent him to mind the cows. 'Just keep Browney out of the wheat,' he said. 'She's the troublemaker. If she stays out of mischief, the rest will be fine.' So Jack tied Browney to a tree, and lay down and went to sleep, while every other cow in the field trampled the wheat.

'You said keep Browney out of mischief, master. There she is, good as gold. SORRY?'

'No!'

Three of the master's heifers went missing. 'Look for them everywhere,' said the master. 'Likely places and unlikely places.' And when he came home, there was Jack up on the roof, pulling out the thatch and peering in.

'I've looked in all the likely places, master. Now I'm trying the unlikely ones. SORRY?'

'No! Put the thatch back!'

Then the master said, 'The path across the bog is so bad the sheep keep sinking in it. Go and make a good path with the sheep's feet.' And when he came down an hour later, there was Jack, sitting with the flock around him, sharpening a carving knife.

'What are you doing?'

'Getting ready to cut off their feet, master, to make the path with, like you said.'

'Make the path FOR their feet, you fool!'

'You should have said so. SORRY?'

'Well, of course I'm... not. Not yet, anyway.'

And then one night the master went to a wedding. 'Come and fetch me at midnight,' he said, 'in case I've had too much to drink. And when you get there, throw a sheep's eye at me.' Which was an old way of saying, give me a look, a wink, to let me know you're there.

So the master was sitting at the wedding feast, and something wet and slimy smacked him on the cheek. He looked down. It was a sheep's eye. Then another one hit the other cheek. And then, just as he opened his mouth to take a drink, a third sheep's eye flew right into it.

'Who's throwing these things at me?'

'Only me, master,' said Jack. 'Throwing sheep's eyes at you, like you told me. Out of your own sheep's heads.'

And the master shouted, in front of everybody, 'Oh, I'm sorry I ever met you!'

'You all heard him,' said Jack. 'He said he's sorry.'

And when Jack told the wedding guests how the Churl had treated his two brothers, they all wanted to see the bargain kept. They laid the master down, and Jack got out his carving knife, and gave it a couple of scrapes on the floor. 'Now,' he said, 'I'll make you an offer. Pay me my double wages, and two hundred guineas for my poor brothers, and I'll let your skin alone.'

'Never!'

And Jack put the tip of the knife to his back. And the Churl yelled, 'Stop! Stop! I'll pay!'

And then Jack told the guests one more thing. 'Don't think too badly of me, neighbors. I'd never put out the eye of a sheep. I bought those eyes from the butcher.'

And Jack went home with the money to his mother and his brothers. And nobody ever called him Jack the Fool again. From then on, they called him Skin Churl Jack.