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This is a humorous and, perhaps in part, truthful folktale from Lapland. Despite the limited amount of characters, it is a well-developed, fast-paced, and funny story. The characters are: a peaceful and quiet man named Pava Jalvi, his unpleasant and difficult wife (referred to as �the shrew�), and the Devil. The story is set in an area �very far north of Lapland�, in the peaceful mountains and among beautiful forests. Pava Jalvi was a man who enjoyed his surroundings and appreciated life. He enjoyed relaxing under a tree and listening to |
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the birds sing. One day, when his wife and he go out to the forest to pick berries, he cannot enjoy the landscape the same way because of her constant bickering. Desperate, Pava Jalvi pushes his wife into a bottomless hole he had come across the previous day. Just when he thinks his troubles are over, the Devil comes out from the hole and tells him he cannot stand �that terrible woman� who has made his life �a living hell!� He goes off to make trouble for the townsfolk, while Pava Jalvi thinks of a way to send him back in order to save the townsfolk. He decides that in order to trick the Devil, he must make him think his wife is out of the hole and looking for him. He tells this lie to the Devil and when he hears this, he runs down the hole and puts a giant rock to cover it up, so that �the shrew� will not get back in. When he reaches the bottom, he realizes he and the shrew are trapped in there forever.
One of the main characteristics which makes it obvious that this is a folktale is the vagueness of the time when the story takes place. We are told that �there once lived a man� and that the Devil and shrew are in hell �to this day�, but we are not told since when. Also, we see that good triumphs over evil and that evil is punished for an indefinite amount of time. Knowing that folktales, as part of traditional literature, are usually written as a form of explaining ourselves, readers can conclude that this story was created to explain why the Devil is evil (from centuries of living with a shrew!) And to rest assured that he will never be able to escape from hell.
Stalder, Valerie. 1946. Even the Devil is afraid of a shrew. United States: Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company. ISBN 0-201-07188-6. |
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