THE MAN WITH TWO DOGS

_{The castle in the forest.}

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Every day Jean, thanks to his two dogs, alone caught as much game as the other eleven hunters combined. So he was in his master's good graces. But his companions did not like him; they were jealous and did not wish him any good. When their master praised his address to them:

"Of course", they replied, "with the dogs he has! If we had his dogs, each of us would do as much as him!"

One day, they locked Brise-Fer and Sans-Pareil in one of the castle towers. When it came time to go hunting, Jean could no longer find his dogs. No matter how much he whistled for them, looking for them everywhere, it was a wasted effort.

So he had to leave without them. But barely had he entered the forest when he saw himself surrounded by all kinds of wild beasts, wolves, foxes, and wild boars, which bared their teeth and seemed ready to tear him to pieces.

"My God!", he said to himself, "I am going to be devoured by these beasts. Ah! if I had had Brise-Fer and Sans-Pareil here!"

No sooner had he pronounced their names than Brise-Fer and Sans-Pareil found themselves near him. And wolves and foxes and wild boars to flee as quickly as possible, seeing them arrive!

That day he again took, as usual, a quantity of game of all kinds, and in the evening, when he returned to the castle, his companions were very surprised to see how loaded he was.

"How", they said to themselves, "could the two dogs have escaped?"

And they went to look at the tower. Brise-Fer and Sans-Pareil had returned there.

"How the hell does he do it?"

Jean, realizing that his companions were not animated by any good feelings towards him, feared some bad turn of theirs and said to himself one day:

"I think the best thing I can do is get out of here as quickly as possible."

So he left, in the middle of the night, taking his two dogs. And he went wandering on adventures, but without worrying about anything, now that he knows what his dogs are worth.

Passing through a forest, he met a rider, dressed all in red and mounted on a white horse.

The rider came to him and asked:

"What are you doing around here with your two dogs?"

"Well, I'm looking for a master."

"Are you a good shot?"

"It was precisely because I was considered too good a shot that I had to leave the castle where I was."

"Well! Do you want to be the guardian of my wood?"

"Yes, I want it".

"It’s agreed. Here are five coins that I give you; and if you never give them all five at once, you will always have five coins in your pocket, however often you put your hand in it... Then, when you want to sleep, lie down on the ground, wherever you will find you, and you will think you are in a feather bed."

“I like it,” said Jean.

Then they went their separate ways.

Jean began to wander through the woods, accompanied by his two dogs and his rifle on his shoulder. There was no shortage of game and he killed it at will. But no matter how much he walked, going ever further, in all directions, he found no end to the woods, and he encountered neither habitation nor any human being.

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Source: L’Homme aux deux chiens. from the French book Contes et légendes de Basse-Bretagne published in 1891.

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Part 1 - Part 2

Part 4

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Hello, my name is Vincent Celier.

 

I am writing translations of folk tales that I found in public domain French books, so that people who do not understand French may enjoy them too.

 
Because he was too good a hunter, Jean had to leave the castle.

Now he is a gamekeeper/ranger in a forest that seems to be really huge and where there are no houses.

Will he be able to find an exit?

 
I am sorry to have waited so long to make this post.

The truth is that for all my life, I have never liked to write. I am still amazed that I have started a blog. In fact, there was a time when I did not post for almost a year.

Let me tell you a true story.

For my first post as a French Navy officer, I spend a year in Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean.

As it was prohibitively expensive to phone from France, and I did not write to my parents for five months after I arrived in Tahiti, they were worried and wanted to have news from me.

One day, the ship I was posted on received a message from the French Navy headquarters in Paris saying that as such a date and time Capitaine de Vaisseau Yves Dyèvre will call Enseigne de Vaisseau Vincent Celier on such a frequency for testing.

The ship captain was very surprised when he read this message so he asked me what was the matter.

I replied that Yves Dyèvre was the brother of my mother Marie Dyèvre and I guessed that he wanted to talk to me because my mother had asked him because she had not received any letter from me for months.

And indeed that was the reason he wanted to talk to me.

I sent a letter to my parents apologizing for my behavior.

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I'll try to post more regularly now, but I cannot promise anything.

-- Vincent Celier