The Flying Dutchman and Other Folktales from the Netherlands

Copyright © 2008 by Theo Meder

One day Tijl Uilenspiegel [1] was lying on the side of the road and he kept on crying, "Oh, I am so .... Oh, I am so .... "

This lamenting went on and on.

Several people came to have a look, because they thought he was seriously ill. In the end, they pIcked him up, brought him home, and put him to bed.

As soon as he lay down, he started yawning and finished his sentence "Oh I am so Oh, I am so ... lazy!"

[1] Since the late Middle Ages Tijl Uilenspiegel has been a well-known trickster in Dutch literature and oral tradition.

This story belongs to an elaborate cycle of trickster tales about Tijl Uilenspiegel, internationally known as ATU 1635*, Eulenspiegel's tricks. In the catalogue of Frisian folktales by Jurjen van der Kooi this is number 31, "O, wat ben lk .... " ("Oh, I am so ..."), The Friisian version of the tale was told on September 14, 1970, to collector A. A. Jaarsma by Mrs. Bontje .Kuipers-Veenstra, living in Drachten (Friesland). The traslation is based on the (unpublIshed) manuscnpt of the Jaarsma Collection, report 826, tale no. 4 (archive and Dutch Folktale Database, Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam).