Farmer Mybrow and the Fairies

Farmer Mybrow went out one day to find a good patch of ground for a new field of corn and yams. He chose a fine spot at the edge of a great forest. What he did not yet know was that fairies lived in that forest. Without wasting a moment, he began to get the land ready.

He sharpened his big knife and started on the bushes. The instant his blade touched the first one, a voice called out, “Who is that, chopping the bushes down?”

Mybrow was so amazed that he could not speak. The voice asked again. Now the farmer understood that a fairy must be talking to him, and he replied, “It is Mybrow. I have come to make myself a field.”

As luck would have it, the fairies were in a cheerful humour. He heard one say, “Come, let’s all help Farmer Mybrow clear the bushes.” The rest were willing, and to his delight every bush was down in a moment, though he had scarcely lifted a hand. He walked home well satisfied, and he resolved that nobody would hear about this field, not even his wife.

At the start of January came the season for burning the dried bush. One afternoon Mybrow went to his field with the things he needed for a fire. As he passed a tree, he gave its trunk a knock on purpose, hoping the fairies would lend a hand again. Straight away the question came: “Who is that, knocking at the stumps?”

“Mybrow, here to burn off the bush,” he called back at once. All the dry bush went up in flames, and the field was clear almost before he had begun.

The following day went the same way. Mybrow arrived to cut the old stumps into firewood and make the soil ready to dig. In no time his sticks and logs lay stacked in bundles and the ground was bare.

That was how the whole season passed. He split the field in two, half for maize and half for yams, and the fairies did much of the digging, sowing and planting for him. Through it all he managed to keep both his wife and his neighbours from finding out where the field lay.

Since the ground had been prepared with such care, the crops grew wonderfully well. Every so often Mybrow went to look at them and told himself what a magnificent harvest was coming.

One day, when the maize and yams were still green and soft, his wife asked him where his field was. She wanted to fetch firewood from it. He refused to tell her at first, but she asked and asked until at last he gave in, on one condition: if anyone put a question to her there, she was not to reply. She gave her word gladly and went on her way.

At the field she stared in wonder, for she had never seen such splendid corn and yams. The milky young maize looked so good that she snapped off an ear. At once a voice asked, “Who is that, snapping the corn?”

“And who are you to question me?” she shot back, with her husband’s warning gone clean out of her head. Then she walked across to the yams and pulled one up as well.

“Who is that, pulling up the yams?” the voice wanted to know.

“Mybrow’s wife, that’s who! My husband owns this field, and I can take what I like.”

Out came the fairies. “Come, let us all help Mybrow’s wife gather her corn and yams!” The terrified woman had no time to say anything; the fairies were already hard at work, and soon every stalk of maize and every yam lay wasted on the earth. Not one was ripe, so the whole crop was ruined.

She cried and cried, but tears changed nothing. Slowly she walked home, with no idea how to tell her husband about such a calamity, and she made up her mind to keep quiet.

So the next morning poor Mybrow went off happily to see how his wonderful crops were doing. Picture his rage and his grief when he found the field destroyed. His expected harvest was gone: his wife’s broken promise had triggered help that neither of them wanted.

About this story

“Farmer Mybrow and the Fairies” is the last of the thirty-six stories in Barker and Sinclair’s West African Folk-Tales (1917). The fairies copy and multiply the work they see and hear described. Mybrow learns to invite that help; his wife does not know how the pattern works, so picking a little unripe produce becomes the loss of the whole crop.

The tale mentions the farming year in passing: bush is burned off early in January, and the field is split between maize and yams. Sinclair’s drawing for it is captioned “Mybrow’s Wife plucked one of the Yams.”

Read the original: Read West African Folk-Tales (Barker and Sinclair) at Project Gutenberg

Best for all ages — a quiet, clear fairy tale about secrets and promises, easy to read aloud.

Reading the story closely

The repeated question has a predictable response: someone names an action, and the fairies carry it out on a huge scale. During clearing and planting, speed helps. During premature harvesting, the same speed destroys the value of the work. The magic has not changed; the timing has.

Write the sequence as action, fairy response and result for three farm visits. Then imagine Mybrow explaining why silence matters instead of giving only a prohibition. His wife breaks the promise, but his secrecy leaves her without the information that helped him use the fairies’ assistance. Shared understanding would be more useful than a rule alone.

Talk about it

• Why did the fairies help Mybrow so much?
• What promise did Mybrow’s wife make, and how did she break it?
• Why did the fairies’ help ruin the crop when the wife answered them?

More stories like this

• The Hunter and the Tortoise — a secret wonder lost by telling
• Adzanumee and Her Mother — a gift undone by a single careless remark