YASHPEH
International Folktales Collection
The Gift of the Ghost |
The Flying Dutchman and Other Folktales from the Netherlands |
Tradition: Dutch, Hollander |
Copyright © 2008 by Theo Meder |
A man with a hump and a man with a wooden leg are sitting in a pub together. Near closing time, the man with the hump wants to go home, but the man with the wooden leg decides to stay and have one for the road. The man with the hump leaves and takes the shortest way home, through the graveyard. When he walks across the graveyard, a ghost suddenly walks up to him and calls out, "Wooo, wooo, what's that on your back?" "Oh, it's a hump," the man says, resigned. "Give it to me," the ghost says and takes the hump away. The next evening, the man tells his friend in the pub what has happened to him: "I'm walking through the graveyard, right? And then this ghost walks up to me, asks me what I've got on my back and takes my hump away, just like that! You know what you should do? You should walk across the graveyard tonight too!" That same evening, the man with the wooden leg walks across the graveyard. Then all of a sudden, the ghost appears, calling out, "Wooo, wooo, what's that on your back?" "Well ..... Nothing!" Then the ghost says, "Here's a hump for you!" |
This joke was told to me in the 1970s by Cor Hersbach in 's-Gravenzande (South Holland). It is a humorous version of ATU 503, The Gifts of the Little People. The translation is based on T. Meder, De magische vlucht (Amsterdam, 2000), p. 207. |
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