Though I am partial to the classics, I do try to read an
assortment of different things. I mean,
a mind can’t survive on just folk tales and children’s books. Just recently I indulged in some classic
crime fiction. The adventures of Maurice
LeBlanc’s gentleman thief character Arsene Lupin. Lupin’s an amazingly crafty criminal with his
own code of honor and a heart that he hides behind a veneer of whimsy and
arrogance. He’s hardly the only
character of this type, though. Italian
comics have Diabolik. More contemporary
English literature has Simon Templar, also known as The Saint. And those of us who grew up reading American
superhero comics in the ‘90s can’t forget about Remy LeBeau, the X-Man known as
Gambit.
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| Monsieur Arsens Lupin |
What I’d nearly forgotten is that the Brothers Grimm also
contributed a crafty purloiner of possessions to the greater culture. If you take a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and
you turn towards the back end of the book, you might come across a tale simply
titled “The Master-Thief"
(there’s
apparently a Norwegian version of this tale too, which I am discovering right
now).
The story opens with a man and his wife at a ramshackle
house. Suddenly a carriage drawn by four
black horses comes up and a richly dressed man descends from it. Taking the man for a nobleman, they ask what
they can do for him. He says he would
just like to taste a peasant dish and asks for a potato dish the way
country-folk make. The peasant woman
goes to make the potatoes and the nobleman goes into the back with the man
where he has been planting trees. They
start talking about family and the peasant man says that he used to have a son
who was clever but a ne’er do well who was full of bad tricks. The son apparently went off into the world
years ago. His father would hardly
recognize him today except for maybe a birthmark on his shoulder in the shape
of a bean. They then talk about
gardening and the “nobleman” asks why he doesn’t tie up an old, twisted tree in
the garden. The man responds that trees
have to be trained when they are young to grow up “straight and narrow”.
You know what, let’s cut to the chase. It turns out the nobleman actually is the
man’s son, birthmark and everything. The
son is now, as he puts it, a “master-thief”.
To him, there are neither locks nor bolts, anything he desires is
his. He also makes a point of noting
that he doesn’t steal from the poor. He
only takes some of the “superfluity of the rich”. He also doesn’t steal anything that he could
take too easily. He only goes after that
which he must acquire with “trouble, cunning and dexterity”.
So, it turns out this master-thief’s godfather is the Count
of all the surrounding area, and he has a rather dim view of thieves. His father even warns him that if the Count
finds out, the thief would find himself swinging from a halter.
The thief doesn’t seem to think much of this warning, so he
goes to the Count and tells him about his vocation himself. The Count decides to deal with his godson
with some leniency. Instead of sending
him straight to the gallows, he sets three challenges for him and if he fails
any of the three he’ll hang.
Those challenges are:
1) To steal the Count’s personal riding horse right out of the
stables.
2) To steal the bed sheet out from under the Count and his
wife, as well as his wife’s wedding ring.
3) To steal the parson and the clerk out of the church.
I’m not going to spoil how he pulls off these daring heists,
because that’s the fun part. I will say
that they involve disguises, cunning, mistruths and misdirection. And surprisingly no killing. That’s not often the case in stories like
this.
But I think all this begs the question: Why do we like
rogues? (Pretty sure I covered this in
my Robin Hood post, but stick with me anyway because I’m on a roll).
Rogues and thieves appear in folklore from all over the
place. I know of examples from Europe
and Asia, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were a few in Africa and Latin
America too. Jack is a bit of a rogue in
his most famous outing, considering he steals from a giant. Then there are the legendary figures like
Robin Hood and Ishikawa Goemon. Heck,
the American West is infamous for making legendary heroes out of real life
criminals like Billy the Kid. It especially
feels strange when rogues are in fairy tales.
Of course, that’s because we’ve had a couple centuries of people trying
to turn them into moralistic stories for children. “The Master-Thief” is more folk tale than
fairy tale because there’s no magic in it, but it would still receive the same
attention by proximity.
I think, on some level, there’s a part of everyone that
wants to buck the rules of society. This
could especially be true for times and situations where those rules seem to
hold people back or keep them down.
Those situations where the rich seem to get richer beyond all need and
the poor get poorer . Lately, there
seems to be a lot of that going around.
It’s especially appealing when the rogue in question doesn’t seem all
that bad to begin with. When the rogue
breaks one big societal rule but follows his own rules that are understandable
and sympathetic like “no stealing from the poor” or “no killing people”. Or if the end result is some degree of wealth
redistribution like it is with Robin Hood.
Folk tale characters aren’t known for their depth, but just this much nuance
can elevate a character enough to significantly make them more interesting.
Well, whatever it is, I like “The Master-Thief” and I’m glad
to add him to the secret stash.
