Jack and His Master

A poor woman had three sons. The two eldest were sharp, clever fellows, but they called the youngest Jack the Fool, because they thought he was little better than a simpleton.

The eldest grew tired of staying at home and said he would go and find work. He was gone a whole year, and then one day he came back, dragging one foot after the other, with a thin, shrivelled face and a temper as cross as two sticks. When he had rested and eaten, he told them that he had taken service with the Gray Churl of the Townland of Mischance. Their agreement was that whichever of them first said he was sorry for the bargain would have a strip of skin an inch wide cut from his back, from shoulder to hip. If it was the master, he would also pay double wages; if it was the servant, he would get no wages at all.

“But the thief gave me so little to eat and worked me so hard that flesh and blood couldn’t bear it,” he said. “One day when I was in a temper he asked me if I was sorry for my bargain, and I was mad enough to say yes. So here I am, crippled for life.”

The poor mother and the brothers were very upset, and the second son said on the spot that he would go and work for the Gray Churl himself, and plague him until he said he was sorry for the agreement. “Won’t I be glad to see the skin coming off the old villain’s back!” he said. Nothing they said could stop him. Off he went to the Townland of Mischance, and in a year he was home, just as wretched and helpless as his brother.

Then, for all his mother could say, Jack the Fool set out to see whether he could put the Gray Churl in his place. He agreed to work for him for a year for twenty pounds, on the same terms.

“Now, Jack,” said the Gray Churl, “if you refuse to do anything you are able to do, you lose a month’s wages.”

“I’m content with that,” said Jack. “And if you stop me doing something after telling me to do it, you must give me an extra month’s wages.”

“I’m content,” said the master.

“And if you blame me for obeying your orders, you must pay the same.”

“I’m content,” said the master.

On his first day Jack was fed very poorly and worked until he was ready to drop. The next day he came into the kitchen just before dinner was carried up to the parlour. They were taking the goose off the spit, and Jack snatched a knife from the dresser, cut off one side of the breast, one leg and thigh and one wing, and tucked in. In came the master and began to scold him for his cheek.

“Ah, but master, you’re bound to feed me, and wherever that goose goes, it won’t need filling up until supper. Are you sorry for our agreement?”

The master was about to shout that he was, but he caught himself just in time. “Oh no, not at all.”

“That’s good,” said Jack.

The next day Jack was to stack turf on the bog, and they were not sorry to have him out of the kitchen at dinner time. His breakfast had not been very filling, so he said to the mistress, “I think, ma’am, I’d better have my dinner now, and not waste time coming home from the bog.”

“That’s true, Jack,” she said, and she brought out a good cake, a pat of butter and a bottle of milk, thinking he would take them to the bog. But Jack stayed in his seat, and he did not stop until bread, butter and milk had all gone down the red lane.

“Now, mistress,” he said, “I’ll be at work earlier tomorrow if I sleep snugly on the sheltered side of a pile of dry turf, instead of coming here and going back. So you might as well give me my supper and be done with the day’s trouble.” She gave it to him, thinking he would take it with him, but he ate it on the spot and left not a crumb to tell tales. The mistress was rather astonished.

Jack went to find the master in the haggard, the yard where the hay was stacked. “What are servants expected to do in this country after they’ve eaten their supper?”

“Nothing at all but go to bed.”

“Very well, sir.” Jack climbed into the stable loft, undressed and lay down. Someone saw him and told the master, who came up in a fury. “Jack, you scoundrel, what do you mean by this?”

“To go to sleep, master. The mistress, God bless her, has given me my breakfast, dinner and supper, and you told me yourself that bed comes next. Do you blame me, sir?”

“Yes, you rascal, I do.”

“Then hand me one pound thirteen and fourpence, if you please, sir.”

“One devil and thirteen imps, you tinker! What for?”

“Oh, I see you’ve forgotten your bargain. Are you sorry for it?”

“Oh, ye… no, I mean. I’ll give you the money after your nap.”

Early the next morning Jack asked what his work would be. “You are to hold the plough in that fallow field outside the paddock.” At about nine o’clock the master went over to see what sort of ploughman Jack was. There was the little boy driving the horses, the plough skimming along the top of the sod, and Jack hauling back against the horses for all he was worth.

“What are you doing, you contrary thief?”

“Aren’t I doing my best to hold this devil of a plough, as you told me? But that useless boy keeps whipping on the horses whatever I say. Will you speak to him?”

“No, but I’ll speak to you. Didn’t you know, you blockhead, that when I said ‘hold the plough’ I meant turn up the ground?”

“Faith, if you did, I wish you’d said so. Do you blame me for what I’ve done?”

The master caught himself in time, though he was so furious he could say nothing for a moment. “Go on and plough the ground properly, you knave, like any other ploughman.”

“And are you sorry for our agreement?”

“Not at all, not at all!” And Jack ploughed like a good workman for the rest of the day.

A day or two later the master told him to mind the cows in a field half planted with young corn. “Be sure above all to keep Browney out of the wheat. As long as she is out of mischief, there’s no fear of the rest.” At noon he went to see how Jack was getting on, and found him fast asleep with his face on the grass. Browney was grazing by a thorn tree, with one end of a long rope round her horns and the other round the tree, and all the other cattle were trampling and eating the green wheat. Down came the master’s stick on Jack.

“Jack, you vagabond, do you see what the cows are doing?”

“And do you blame me, master?”

“Of course I do, you lazy slug!”

“Hand me one pound thirteen and fourpence, master. You said that if only I kept Browney out of mischief, the rest would do no harm. There she is, as harmless as a lamb. Are you sorry you hired me?”

“To be… that is, not at all. I’ll pay you at dinner. Now understand me: don’t let a single cow out of the field or into the wheat for the rest of the day.” Jack promised, and he kept his word. But the Churl would have given a great deal never to have hired him.

The next day three heifers were missing, and the master told Jack to search for them.

“Where shall I look?”

“Oh, in every place, likely and unlikely, where they might be.” The Churl was getting very careful with his words. But when he came into the yard at dinner time, he found Jack pulling armfuls of thatch off the roof and peering into the holes.

“What are you doing up there, you rascal?”

“Looking for the heifers, poor things!”

“What would bring them up there?”

“I don’t suppose anything could. But I looked in the likely places first, the cowsheds, the pastures and the fields beside them, and now I’m looking in the unlikeliest place I can think of. Maybe that doesn’t please you?”

“Of course it doesn’t please me, you maddening goose!”

“Then please, sir, hand me one pound thirteen and fourpence before you sit down to dinner. I’m afraid you’re sorry you hired me at all.”

“May the dev… oh no, I’m not sorry. Will you kindly start putting the thatch back, just as if you were doing it for your mother’s cabin?”

“Faith, I will, sir, with a heart and a half.” And by the time the farmer came out from his dinner, Jack had made the roof better than it had ever been, for he made the boy bring him new straw. “Now, Jack,” said the master, “go and look for the heifers and bring them home.”

“And where shall I look for them?”

“Search for them as if they were your own.” The heifers were all in the paddock before sunset.

The next morning the master said, “Jack, the path across the bog to the pasture is very bad. The sheep sink at every step. Go and make the sheep’s feet a good path.” About an hour later he came to the edge of the bog and found Jack sharpening a carving knife, with the sheep standing and grazing round him.

“Is this how you mend the path, Jack?”

“Everything must have a beginning, master, and a thing well begun is half done. I’m sharpening the knife, and I’ll have the feet off every sheep in the flock before you can bless yourself.”

“The feet off my sheep, you rogue! What would you take their feet off for?”

“Why, to mend the path, as you told me. You said, ‘Jack, make a path with the sheep’s feet.’”

“Oh, you fool, I meant make the path good for the sheep’s feet.”

“A pity you didn’t say so, master. Hand me one pound thirteen and fourpence if you don’t want me to finish the job.”

“The devil do you good with your one pound thirteen and fourpence!”

“Better to pray than to curse, master. Maybe you’re sorry for your bargain?”

“Indeed I am… not yet, anyway.”

The next night the master was going to a wedding, and before he set out he said to Jack, “I’ll leave at midnight, and I want you to come and see me home, in case the drink gets the better of me. If you get there early, you can throw a sheep’s eye at me, and I’ll make sure they give you something for yourself.”

At about eleven o’clock, when the master was in high spirits, something cold and slimy struck him on the cheek and fell beside his glass. He looked, and it was a sheep’s eye. He could not imagine who had thrown it at him or why. A little later another sheep’s eye hit him on the other cheek. He was very annoyed, but he thought it better to say nothing. Two minutes later, just as he opened his mouth to take a sip, a third sheep’s eye landed right in it. He spat it out and cried, “Man of the house, isn’t it a disgrace to have someone in the room who would do such a filthy thing?”

“Master,” said Jack, “don’t blame the good man. It was only me throwing sheep’s eyes at you, to remind you I was here and wanted to drink the bride and bridegroom’s health. You told me to yourself.”

“I know you’re a great rascal. And where did you get the eyes?”

“Where would I get them but from the heads of your own sheep? Would you have me touch a neighbour’s animals, and maybe be put in jail for it?”

“Sorrow on me that I ever had the bad luck to meet you!”

“You are all witnesses,” said Jack, “that my master says he is sorry he met me. My time is up. Master, hand over my double wages, and come into the next room and lie down like a man with some decency in him, while I take a strip of skin an inch wide from your shoulder to your hip.”

Everyone cried out against it. “But you didn’t stop him,” said Jack, “when he took the same strips from my two brothers’ backs and sent them home to their poor mother in that state, without a penny.” When the guests heard the truth of it, they were all eager to see the job done. The master yelled and bellowed, but no one would help him. He was stripped to the waist and laid on the floor in the next room, and Jack stood over him with the carving knife.

“Now, you cruel old villain,” said Jack, scraping the knife along the floor a couple of times, “I’ll make you an offer. Give me two hundred guineas to keep my poor brothers, as well as my double wages, and I’ll let you off the strip.”

“No! I’d let you skin me from head to foot first.”

“Here goes, then,” said Jack with a grin. But at the very first little scratch, the Churl roared, “Stop! I’ll give you the money!”

“Now, neighbours,” said Jack, “don’t think worse of me than I deserve. I wouldn’t have the heart to take the eye out of a rat. I got half a dozen eyes from the butcher and only used three.”

Then everyone went back into the other room, sat Jack down and drank his health, and he drank the health of every one of them at a single go. Six strong fellows walked Jack and his master home and waited in the parlour while the Churl went upstairs and fetched the two hundred guineas and Jack’s double wages. When Jack got home, he brought the summer with him to his poor mother and his crippled brothers. And nobody called him Jack the Fool any more, but Skin-Churl Jack.

Where this story comes from

Jacobs took this tale from Patrick Kennedy’s Fireside Stories of Ireland, where it is called “Shan an Omadhan and his Master.” He calls it a European droll, widespread across the continent, and names it “the loss of temper bet.” A churl is a mean, miserly man.

Jack’s fine of one pound thirteen and fourpence is exactly one month of his twenty-pound yearly wage. The Churl’s bargain is cruel, and the threat of cutting skin is part of the story; Jack’s brothers have already suffered permanent injuries. The master receives a scratch before agreeing to payment, and the sheep’s eyes turn out to be from the butcher.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, Celtic Fairy Tales (Gutenberg #7885, Jack and His Master)

For older readers: mutilation of the brothers, threats of further violence, animal-body imagery and revenge by intimidation. The comic conclusion does not undo the brothers’ injuries.

Reading the story closely

Jack’s skill appears when an order is clear: he can plough properly, repair the roof better than before and retrieve the heifers. His obstructive literalism is therefore a strategy rather than inability. Compare ‘look in every place’ with ‘search as if they were your own.’ The master learns to describe a purpose, but his original threat still makes their relationship coercive.

At the wedding, the audience first condemns Jack’s threat and then supports it after hearing about his brothers. Track that reversal alongside the revelation about the butcher’s eyes. Both depend on withheld information. Jack finally secures money for his brothers instead of carrying out the full punishment; readers can distinguish compensation from the threat used to obtain it without treating the master’s earlier violence as a harmless joke.

Think about it

• What was the agreement between the Gray Churl and his servants?
• How did Jack use the master’s own words against him?
• Why do you think Jack offered to let the Churl off for two hundred guineas?

More stories like this

• Jack and His Comrades — another Irish Jack who sets out to seek his fortune
• Hudden and Dudden and Donald O’Neary — a poor man who outwits greedy neighbours
• Jack the Cunning Thief — a clever Irish lad who meets every challenge a lord sets