Once upon a time, even across the Peruvian Sea, in a lame arsac seven hundred miles away, there was a poor woman and her big, lanky son. The poor woman wove and wove day and night, her hands and feet were not able to stand the hard work, but the big teenage boy who was a rope-hanger did nothing but wander in the dust from morning till night, grinding the dust from one hand to the other.
Alas, the poor woman mourned, only she was not overcome with grief and bitterness. What would become of her only child, if she once closed her eyes. For she is so helpless, so afraid of the world, that she will not even lift her ready-made blessing to her mouth. But one day John speaks and asks his mother:
- Mother, why are they knocking so hard next door?
- There, my dear boy, men are building houses and working on them.
John leaps up with great haste, so that his mother's eyes were wide open with heavy dreaming, and says:
- I'm going there too, mother, to see if I can be of some use.
When it comes to house builders, that's just when they're struggling with a nine-pin rafter,* but they didn't have the soul or the god to lift it up. John clasps his palms together in a dreamy way, and cries:
- Can't even lift that?!
- Get out of here, you toothy bastard* - a man shouted at him, "because I'll put your neck under the tree!
- Nye, you! Don't be so angry, for they're not half as bad as they eat (they're whole) if they can't even put up that thin stake. Give it here!
With that he took the rafter, and gave it up like a stick.
Well then, John had suddenly become a man of great honour. Wherever they built, he was called to the front, he was the one who gave up the heaviest trees, and he earned so much money that he didn't know what to do or where to put it.
But his mother was happy too! What a brave son she has. That he would support her till the day she died. But he went to the judge, and boasted to him that he was so and so... The judge was a miserly man, he had never kept a servant, but he thought he would take John cheaply. He had just bought a lot of big, bushy land, and this strong lad would clear it.
Tell the woman your intentions. Oh, how her poor head went mad! She ran home and took John straight to the judge. The settlement also went quickly. The agreement was that the judge would provide him and his mother with food, drink and clothing, and when he left he would get a pair of belts. This is cut either from the back of the judge or from the back of John, the one who is angry with the other.
On the day of his ordination, John stood before the judge to begin his ministry. The next morning, he was given a small, cold porridge and told to drive the sheep out to the ciheres,* but don't come home until tonight and write that cyherest! But the tarisnya was so flat, as if it had been struck by the thunderbolt.
John did not regret this, he drove the sheep out, leaving them to graze, and he gathered up some dry twigs and made a fire that blazed up to the sky. Then when he had a good fire burning, he took two lambs, skinned them, put them on a spit of hard wood, roasted them to a nice crisp, and fed them so well that he would not have traded places with the king.
In the evening he went home with the sheep. When he got home, the judge asked:
- Well, how big a place did you skin him, John?
- "I'm quite sure," said John.
- All the way, you? What did you skin all the way?!
- Well, the two coloured sheep, I instal. But are you angry, your honour?
- I'm not angry, I'm not angry! You did the right thing. Do it again if my wife doesn't put anything in your bag.
The magistrate had done his wife a good turn for having done her such terrible harm by her miserliness, though he had ordered her to put nothing in her purse; but there was no one else on whom to vent his wrath.
So that's how the whole winter passed. Then, when it was all over, the judge went out to see how John was getting on with the clearance.
Oh, my soul, my God, there was not a bush to it. And John slept with the sheep like a sheep. The judge took him, and rebuked him, but John took no notice, but asked:
- Are you angry, your honour?
- I'm not angry, I'm not angry, you scoundrel, just keep your back, and I'll rip the strap out of it, because you didn't keep the communion!
- Then my lord judge held it first, for he had not kept the commission. He gave my mother not a morsel to eat, and me only very seldom.
There's no getting around it, the judge thinks, he's just torturing him until the ciheres are eradicated. The next day John was not surprised when he saw that the bag contained a large white loaf of bread, bacon, cottage cheese and even brandy.
Now, he thought, he must indeed see to the eradication. First he started with an axe, but it was slow going. He, he thought, with no effort, threw the axe away, took the bush in both hands, and pulled it out one by one, like a woman pulling out a hemp.
In two days, he tore up everything: trees, bushes, shrubs, peppercorns,* and then gathered it into a great bundle, as big as a church, and set fire to it.
Oh, dear God, there was a fire, but it was so big that it didn't want to get dark at night. They see the great fire in the village, the people are frightened: now the whole world is burning!
They turn the bell aside, some take axes, some take sticks in their hands, and run towards the fire as if they had taken out their eyes. Only when they get there, they see that the judge's cypress is burning, and not the world.
John laughed a good laugh, and the men went home in great annoyance. The judge asks John in the morning:
- Is there much left unexploited, John?
- Not a single one, Your Honour.
- So what did you do, where did you clean it up?
- I burned them all to a crisp. Didn't you see that big fire last night?
- Of course I did! But I was told that the village next door was on fire, you bastard!
- Are you angry, your honour?
- I'm not angry, I'm not angry!
And he was so angry that he almost burst with anger.
Neither the judge nor the judge's wife knew what to do with János.
Day and night they were thinking about how to get rid of him. One day, the judge did come up with something. He calls John in and says to him:
- Here's some food, underwear, take it to the woods for your brother Nicholas, who's been there for a year with the pigs, and has certainly been getting shabby. If you find the pigs, drive them home together.
John set out into the many great forests to find the herd of pigs that had never been. For every wise man could have guessed that the judge would send John into the forest only to be destroyed by some wild beast.
John walked, paced, stumbled through the dense jungle, went to every place where the judge explained that it could be this way or that way, but he could not find him anywhere, nor could he see a living soul.
For a week he had been looking for him, wondering whether he should not go home and ask again where this Mr. Nicholas was. As he broods, he hears a great clattering, crackling, chattering, munching, as if he were a herd of pigs.
Indeed it was! A great herd of pigs stampeded in the thicket before him, and a great blackness followed them. Now, that's the pig-herd, all right.
John is delighted to have found the judge's pigs after all, he shouts at the top of his voice:
- Hey, Uncle Nicholas, hey! stop your boiling, I've brought bread, I've brought clean! - But Uncle Nicholas kept pacing back and forth, grumbling. It was a bear, not a man, I saw him as I see him today! He was circling the herd of wild boar, if he could catch one for supper. John was very angry that Uncle Nicholas wouldn't even move his ear, so he ran up and gave him a good whack on the shoulder blade.
- God grant, Uncle Nicholas! Will you not even speak to the poor man? My lord sent a cleaner to pick him up, for everything is torn off the kend!
The bear is frightened, and suddenly he runs up a tree, and from there he mumbles down at John.
- Come down from that tree and put on your shirt!
But the bear didn't move, just mumbled:
- Mam-mam-mam...
- "Not today, created by three snowmen," said John, "but right now, Uncle Nicholas!
He could have told you that. John was angry, but very angry, and in his anger he cut down the tree, thorn and all, so that he just rolled on the ground with his wife.
Uncle Miklós groaned loudly, and in his anguish he shouted so loudly that the crowd roared.
- Shall I tell you so that you will not joke? If so, he has struck you. Well, put on that shirt, no!
For Uncle Miklós was not joking now, he stood on two legs and slapped János so hard that his eyes saw green and red.
But even now, John was losing his godly peace.
- "Mam-ma!" continued Uncle Miklós, grumbling.
- Today, today, put on that shirt, for I'm going to make you dance! - cried John.
Well, he could shout and talk nice and nasty, just as he would to the wall, but Uncle Miklós just mumbled and waved at János from right and left.
- Is that so?! Stop it, kied! - He took the shirt and trousers, took hold of Uncle Nicholas, dressed him neatly, and even gave him a good whack on the part of him that was not bent as it should have been.
When he had finished dressing, he took Uncle Nicholas by the arm and led him to drive the herd of pigs home. But he must have whipped them with his whip, for none of them went where he wanted them to go, and when he found one of them he turned back and gave him a great snarl with his fangs. When he saw that he could not get on, he cut off a three-pronged stake of bikk wood, and began to use it to smear the pigs in the side. It did the trick, only a terrible boar turned round and ran at him to cut it down.
- "Stop, you pig," said John, "I'll teach you to be a man!" and with that he struck him on the head so hard that he turned over. Then he gave him to Baba Nicholas to take care of him while he rounded up the others.
But Uncle Miklós took such good care of him that he ate every mouthful by the time János was back.
- "You could have kept at least half of it," grumbled John, "but I don't mind, well, just help me drive the rest home!
But the bear just growled:
- Mam-mam!
- Not today, your price, but now! - cried John, and he struck the bear so hard that it started to move.
The next evening they were lucky enough to get home.
Hail, Holy Mary, Holy Joseph! The judge, when he saw all those pigs in the sea, was shivering with fear. John said nothing: it was all over, he let the pigs into the barn, roasted one for the Lady Nicholas for supper, and went to the judge and said to him:
- Well, my lord, I'd send the pigs home, but I wouldn't even keep a shepherd like Uncle Nicholas down. I could only give him the clean one by force, and he had no bandage on him, everything was torn off; he didn't want good soft bread or good roast meat, he would only eat it raw, but then he ate a pig all the way through. And on his way home he wouldn't come for the world. If I were a judge, I would not keep him any longer.
- "I won't, my son, I won't, just chase him out of the village," the judge said, just to get rid of the bear.
John went out, took the bear by the ears, led him out into the field, and said:
- Up you go, down you go, Uncle Nicholas, go where your eyes can see! - So the bear went, running straight for the forest, as if he had been taken for an eye.
"Well," thinks the judge, "I've just got rid of that, but what am I going to do with all those wild boars!"
He calls in John and tells him:
- My son John, I see that those pigs are in good meat, kill some at dawn.
John got up at dawn, killed all the pigs in a row, and then started to scorch them. In the morning he scorched all the straw the judge had.
The judge says, go to the county judge and borrow some straw.
John went away, and the county judge said:
- Go, my son, into the garden, there's a big bowl there, take as much as you can carry.
John went back into the garden, lifted up one end of the wire, tucked himself under it, and started the whole thing. But he could not reach the barn, so he put the straw down, tilted the barn a little, and then he put the straw on his back again, and when he came to the door he called out:
- Thank you very much, Your Honour!
- 'Hey,' cried the magistrate, 'stop, you scoundrel, don't take all my straw!
But John didn't give him any, he took them all and burned them.
The judge could have got rid of the boar, but not of János.
He's cooked up something to destroy it again. There was a deep, deep, dry well in the yard, and it was covered with a millstone so big that twelve men could not move it.
The judge says to John:
- Take away that stone, and put the meat and the bacon in the well, that they may not perish.
John just pushed away the millstone, then went down to the well to put away the many meats that twenty-four men had given away. They passed it around for a while, but then the judge had the millstone strapped back to the well. John waited and waited to see when the meat would be delivered, but when he saw that he was waiting in vain, he went up to see what they were doing upstairs.
As he reached the top, his head got stuck in something heavy. He looks, and the millstone has been put back in place. "Well, well," thought John, "this hat has a bit of a big brim, but who has a hat like that, says hello with it!" - He stuck his head in the millstone's hole, and rose to the courtyard, and wished the judge a good morning with brandy. He said:
- Thank you for the hat, my lord, but the sun does me no harm now, even if I don't wear such a large-brimmed hat.
Ette the judge of the poison, the annoyance, perennial,* that you just can't destroy this rope-wielding bastard. As soon as I am thus perpetuated, the order comes that either you go yourself or send someone to the king's army, for you must go to France. The judge was mad, and now he would be rid of John. He gave him a white horse, and for four weeks he saddled him with provisions, and even gave him money, two pieces of twenty.
Only then, when John was on horseback, did he ask the judge:
- Well, what do you have to do there, Your Honour?
- Nothing, my son, just to fight.
- Well, if you just want to fight, God bless you, your honour, thank you for your kindness! - John set out, and did not stop till he came to the place where they were at war. Just then the two armies were in the greatest heat. He dismounted from his horse, tied his head to his feet, and himself made a fire, took his satchel, put a mantelpiece to the fire* water, and when it boiled, he poured in pulse flour. Well, when it was boiling and bubbling, the enemy started shooting towards the fire, and a big cannonball fell right next to John.
- 'Don't shoot here, hey,' cried John, 'there are people here!
But the enemy did not listen much to John, and cannonballs and rifle bullets fell around him like a shower of rain.
John calls out again:
- I tell you not to throw me, because if you hit me or break the turkey pot, you'll be in trouble!
Before he had even said it, a cannonball had taken the powder-kettle, fired, all of it, as if it had never been there. But now John had had enough of the joke, he leaped up from his tree, took a young birch tree from its trunk, and struck the enemy, knocking him down and smashing him so that some ran away, some died, but not a single enemy was left.
- 'I told you so,' said John, when the great attak (battle - ed.) was over. Then he went away, built another fire, and cooked a broth so thick that the steam rose into the sky.
Just as I was about to eat, the King came. He thanked the king for ridding his country of the enemy, made him a prince once and for all, and gave him one of his daughters in marriage.
As soon as the big dino-dance and the wedding was over, John went home to his village, took his mother with him, and bathed her in milk and butter until the day he died.
They are still alive today, if they are not dead.
(Elek Benedek: Hungarian tale- and mythology Volume 1)
