Shakespeare said it best: Now is the winter of our discontent.
The weather has been awful enough I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling discontented. Even my friends and classmates from Saint Louis have been getting way more snow than usually falls there! Couldn't seem to find a story I wanted to tell. There was always something wrong with whatever I wanted to post . . . until I found the story of "The Discontented Pig."
Sometimes old collections of stories get too obvious with their purpose or too moralistic. Nothing says you have to tell the lesson from a fable or other story, just tell it and let your audience draw their own conclusions. I might be discontented with Katherine Dublap Cather's obvious title for her Educating by Story-Telling and her explanation of the story's purpose, but that doesn't stop me recognizing myself in this little story.
THE DISCONTENTED PIG (Thuringian Folk Tale—Ethics, teaching contentment) Ever so long ago, in the time when there were fairies, and men and animals talked together, there was a curly-tailed pig. He lived by himself in a house at the edge of the village, and every day he worked in his garden. Whether the sun shone or the rain fell he hoed and dug and weeded, turning the earth around his tomato vines and loosening the soil of the carrot plot, until word of his fine vegetables traveled through seven counties, and each year he won the royal prize at the fair.
But after a time that little pig grew tired of the endless toil.
“What matters it if I do have the finest vegetables in the kingdom,” he thought, “since I must work myself to death getting them to grow? I mean to go out and see the world and find an easier way of making a living.”
So he locked the door of his house and shut the gate of his garden and started down the road.
A good three miles he traveled, till he came to a cottage almost hidden in a grove of trees. Lovely music sounded around him and Little Pig smiled, for he had an ear for sweet sounds.
“I will go look for it,” he said, following in the direction from which it seemed to come.
Now it happened that in that house dwelt Thomas, a cat, who made his living playing on the violin. Little Pig saw him standing in the door pushing the bow up and down across the strings. It put a thought into his head. Surely this must be easier and far more pleasant than digging in a garden!
“Will you teach me to play the violin, friend cat?” he asked.
Thomas looked up from his bow and nodded his head. “To be sure,” he answered; “just do as I am doing.” And he gave him the bow and fiddle.
Little Pig took them and began to saw, but squeak! quang! No sweet music fell upon his ear. The sounds he heard were like the squealing of his baby brother pigs when a wolf came near them.
“Oh!” he cried; “this isn’t music!”
Thomas, the cat, nodded his head. “Of course not,” he said. “You haven’t tried long enough. He who would play the violin must work.”
“Then I think I’ll look for something else,” Piggywig answered, “because this is quite as hard as weeding my garden.” And he gave back the bow and fiddle and started down the road.
He walked on and on, until he came to a hut where lived a dog who made cheese. He was kneading and molding the curd into cakes, and Little Pig thought it looked quite easy.
“I think I’d like to go into the cheese business myself,” he said to himself. So he asked the dog if he would teach him. This the dog was quite willing to do, and a moment later Little Pig was working beside him. Soon he grew hot and tired and stopped to rest and fan himself.
“No, no!” exclaimed the dog, “you will spoil the cheese. There can be no rest time until the work is done.”
Little Pig opened his eyes in amazement. “Indeed!” he replied. “Then this is just as hard as growing vegetables or learning to play a violin. I mean to look for something easier.” And he started down the road.
On the other side of the river, in a sweet green field, a man was taking honey out of beehives. Little Pig saw him as he crossed the bridge and thought that of all the trades he had seen, this suited him best. It must be lovely there in the meadow among the flowers. Honey was not heavy to lift, and once in a while he could have a mouthful of it. He ran as fast as he could go to ask the man if he would take him into his employ.
This plan pleased the bee man as much as it pleased the pig. “I’ve been looking for a helper for a year and a day,” he said. “Begin work at once.” He gave Little Pig a veil and a pair of gloves, telling him to fasten them on well. Then he told him to lift a honeycomb out of a hive.
Little Pig ran to do it, twisting his curly tail in the joy of having at last found a business that suited him. But buzz, buzz! The bees crept under his veil and inside his gloves. They stung him on his fingers, his mouth, his ears, and the end of his nose, and he squealed and dropped the honey and ran.
“Come back, come back!” the man called.
“No, no!” Little Pig answered with a big squeal. “No, no, the bees hurt me!”
The man nodded his head. “Of course they do,” he said. “They hurt me too! That is part of the work. You cannot be a beekeeper without getting stung.”
Little Pig blinked his beady eyes and began to think hard. “It seems that every kind of work has something unpleasant about it. To play the violin you must practice until your arm aches. When you make cheese you dare not stop a minute until the work is done, and in taking honey from a hive the bees sting you until your head is on fire. Work in my garden is not so bad after all, and I am going back to it.”
So he said good-by to the bee man and was soon back in his carrot patch. He hoed and raked and weeded, singing as he worked, and there was no more contented pig in all that kingdom. Every autumn he took his vegetables to the fair and brought home the royal prize, and sometimes, on holidays, the cat and the dog and the bee man came to call.
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The English philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill probably said it best, "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied." I still can't wait for the weather to warm up and melt the snow. In the meantime it's a great time to read and tell stories.
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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, “Keeping the Public in Public Domain.” The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century. My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy discovering them.
At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience. Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week. This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here. (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.) Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.
See the sidebar for other Public Domain story resources I recommend on the page “Public Domain Story Resources."
