The Fox, the Wolf and the Carter Five Fables

At the end of the 15th century,

a Scottish notary and teacher called Robert Henryson

writes a series of animal fables based on the old stories of Aesop.

Esope myne authour makis mentioun

of twa myis and thay wer sisteris deir.

Henryson is little known these days, but experts consider him a master.

He is the greatest poet, I think, of the 15th century in English or Scots.

Fast-forward over 500 years

and Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney catches a glimpse

of an early manuscript of the fables and is spellbound.

It had a little rooster on the top right-hand corner of the manuscript.

The rooster was crowing and there was something so jaunty about it.

Over several years,

Seamus creates a series of modern English translations,

infused with the language of his rural childhood in Northern Ireland.

It's absolutely brilliant. It's a wonderful translation.

And he persuades Scottish actor and comedy legend

Billy Connolly to record them.

This country mouse, when winter came, endured cold and hunger.

I think he's amazing. His reputation swells before him.

Now, five of these fables have been animated for a project

that Seamus Heaney was working on at the time of his death,

bringing a modern dimension to tales that were written

over half a millennium ago,

with a specially-composed score by international pianist

and conductor, Barry Douglas.

This is a very major thing for me.

It's a new departure and I'm very excited.

In a moment, the full animated story of The Fox, The Wolf And The Carter

with an introduction by Seamus Heaney himself

and, later, some revealing behind-the-scenes footage

of how these morality tales made it to the screen.

Five medieval fables are now ready for their second coming.

The Middle Ages were a time

when the old tradition was still thriving

and, among the characters in that tradition,

one of the most popular,

maybe THE most popular, was Reynard The Fox, the sly fox.

Also, the cruel wolf.

And, in the fable about the fox, the wolf and the carter,

the fox comes out in his old colours as the sly one, the cunning one.

And, oddly enough, the wolf ends up as the one who is duped at the end.

The plot begins with the wolf, savage, dangerous,

roaming the countryside and the fox meets the wolf

and the wolf decides he needs him as a servant.

Anyway, it's the season of Lent, when they are meant to be fasting

and eating fish only.

And they have no fish until, behold,

a man with a cartload of fish comes down along the road.

And, by pretending he's dead,

the fox manages to get up on top of the load

and starts to drop out fish for the wolf coming behind,

until he is spotted, of course, and then he flees.

And he tricks the wolf into going back for more,

because he tells him a lie about seeing a huge salmon

and the wolf gets a terrible beating from the carter

and the fox goes off free.

So, at the end, you have the situation reversed.

The fox is the one who is in charge and the wolf is beaten.

Once upon a time, in a wilderness, according to the author of my tale,

there lived a wolf, a reiver ravenous.

Around field and fold, freebooting in great style,

killing, culling, plundering at will.

Showing no fear or favour, he rampaged.

The strong weren't spared. The weaker ones were savaged.

One day, when he was on his usual hunt

He chanced to meet a fox upon the way.

But fox had spied him and, as was his wont,

dissembled, acted scared. Bowed. Bade good day.

"Well met," said he, "Friend wolf." Then, down he lay.

And wolf falls for it, reaches out his hand

And says, "Sir fox! Come now. Stop cringing. Stand!

"Where have you been these ages from my sight?

"We must link up. You be my agent.

"Be my hen-snatcher, my roost-raider by night.

"Creep into coops. Go on a fowling spree."

"O, sir," said fox, "that's not a job for me.

"You know what happens. The minute I appear,

"There's panic in each henhouse, pen and byre."

"No," cries the wolf. "Not so. For you can creep

"Low on your knees and nab hens by the head,

"Can make a sudden tackle on a sheep,

"Then shake and rake and rack him, till he's dead."

"Sir," says the fox, "You know my coat is red

"And so well-watched, in spite of all my cunning,

"there's not a beast now doesn't see me coming."

"Still," said the wolf, "By brakes and braes you wend

"And slink along and steal up on your prey."

"Sir," said the fox, "you know how these things end.

"They catch my scent downwind, from far away

"And scatter fast and leave me in dismay.

"They could be lying sleeping in a field

"But once I'm close, they're off. It puts me wild."

"But", cried the wolf, "You can come down upwind.

"For every trick, they work, you have a wile."

"Sir," said the fox, "No beast that isn't blind

"But could escape from me by many a mile.

"How can I fend when all my old schemes fail?

"These pointed ears! These two grey eyes! I'm known.

"Before I'm seen at all, my cover's gone."

"Oh," cried the wolf, "I fear you tell a lie.

"You weave and dodge to keep your secrets safe.

"You beat about the bush. You're far too sly.

"But nothing you can say will put me off.

"Lies and false trails won't give you the last laugh

"So listen well to what I'm saying to you,

"do what you're bid. Obey, before you're made to."

"Sir," said the fox, "It's Lent, you understand,

"And I can't fish. I dare not wet my feet.

"I'm starved for a stickleback, for here on land

"There's not a thing that you or I can eat.

"But, when Easter comes, when red meat and white meat

"fall off the bone, when kid and lamb and hen

"turn on the spits, I'll be your agent, then."

"So," said the wolf, in rage, "You think you can

"get round me still? Am I wet behind the ears?

"I'm far too old for all this carry-on.

"Where do you think I've been these 30 years?"

"Sir," said the fox, "For God's sake, calm your fears.

"You're so far wrong, you don't make any sense:

"I could hang myself to prove my innocence.

"But now I see how foolish I have been.

"No man should ever argue with his boss.

"I was playing games. In no way did I mean

"to give offence. So, please, sir, don't be cross.

"I'm at your service now and will take orders,

"at any time, wherever, night or day."

"Well," cried the wolf, "I like well what you say,

"but, even so, you'll have to swear an oath,

"to be true to me and put me always first."

"Fie," cried the fox, "What's this? You doubt my faith?

"Your suspicions are an insult. I protest!

"And yet, all right, to set your mind at rest,

"I swear by Jupiter, on pain of death,

"I'll keep my word to you while I draw breath."

With that a carter, with his cart and creels,

came rattling along and fox took note.

A whiff of herring hit him in the nostrils

And he whispers to the wolf, "Can you smell that?

"It's herring that your man has in that cart

"and my advice is this - we study ways

"to lay in fish to tide us through fast days.

"Now I'm your agent, I have to find supplies,

"but you don't have two brass pence to rub together.

"And if I begged and went down on my knees

"On all fours here before him in the gutter,

"yon eejit wouldn't hand one herring over.

"But still, no matter, wait a while and see.

"I'll put one over on him, presently.

"The thing is this - if we're to rip him off,

"you'll have to lend a hand and take a chance

"For the man who's not prepared to make a move

"to help himself, I must discountenance.

"I intend to go to work now all at once.

"All you need do is walk behind the cart

"and lift the herring. Thus, each will play his part."

With that he made a far, free-ranging detour,

Then stretched out in the middle of the road

Pretending to be dead and making sure

he looked it, that the whites of his eyes showed

like one who'd perished there for want of food.

His tongue lolled out, a hand's breadth from his head,

as he lay stiff and still. Perfectly dead.

The carter found the fox and he was glad,

Boasting to himself what he would do...

"At the next stop, I'll have the fellow flayed

"And fox-skin mittens cut." Then, heel and toe,

he danced a dance as lightsome as a doe,

as if he'd heard a piper playing reels.

Then, paused and gazed and hunkered on his heels.

"Here lies", he said, "The devil in the ditch.

"I've never seen the like of it before.

"Some mongrel mangled you and made dispatch

"and sank you in that sleep, where you don't snore.

"So, Sir Fox, you are all the welcomer.

"Some housewife's curse, some malison, I fear.

"For raiding roosts has lighted on you here.

"No pedlar's going to purchase you. Your pelt

"won't make him gloves or trimmings or a purse.

"I'm going to keep a hold of it myself

"and cut and sew it into hand-warmers.

"It won't be shipped across the sea to Flanders."

And there and then, he grabbed the fox's heels

And landed him high up among the creels.

Then, cheerfully, he takes the horse's head.

The wily fox takes heed and has begun,

to bite the plug and loosen and unload

herring from the creel-mouth, one by one.

A shoal of them, a fish-slide, pouring down.

The wolf keeps close and gathers them at speed.

The carter sings, "Halloo," right long and loud.

But at a burn, he turns and looks about.

The fox leaps clear and legs it from the creels.

The carter would have hit a deadly clout,

but fox has shown a clean pair of heels

and headed for his den. Then carter howls:

"A gutting, I'll give you, a herring-treat,

"a second helping that you'll not forget."

"Be damned," the fox said, "For we'll never meet.

"I heard you planning how you'd use my skin.

"Your hands will never feel those mittens' heat.

"God's curse you, hellion, you and all your kin.

"Go sell your goods. I won't be in the bargain.

"Sell herring at the highest price you can -

"Whatever herring's left. Farewell, fishman!"

The carter shook with anger where he stood.

"It serves me right," he said, "I missed the cur.

"I should have had a staff of seasoned wood,

"to hammer him and break his sleekit shoulder."

With that, he faced the ditch and vaulted over

and hacked himself a staff and dressed it clean,

A heavy, hard, straight stick of holly green.

Off went the fox, then, to his boss accomplice

and found him by the herring, standing guard.

"Sir," said the fox, "Can I not pierce defences

"stylishly and well? It is always hard

"to keep a brave man from his just reward."

The wolf agreed. He said, "I do confess,

"you're ever capable and brave and wise.

"But what", he went on, "Was that idiot shouting,

"when he hunted you and howled and shook his fist?"

"Sir," said the fox, "his words are worth repeating.

"A herring treat, he mocked me, I had missed.

"A second helping that I'd never taste."

"And was there such a treat?" "There was. I'd caught it

"But it weighed too much and nearly tore my teeth out.

"But truly, boss, if we could land that catch,

"it would see us through our 40 days of fast."

Then wolf said, "I will risk it. We must fetch

"that Lent-feed here. My strong teeth can lay waste

"to herring-bone and basket-work, I trust."

"Indeed," the fox replied, "I often wished

"for your bite and brawn, to help me raise that fish.

"It's like a side of salmon, more or less,

"shiny as a partridge eye and luscious.

"Worth more than all those herring on the grass,

"three times as tasty, three times more precious."

"Then," cried the wolf, "Advise me on my course."

"Sir," said the fox, "Keep strictly to my plan

"and, all being well, we will outwit our man.

"First you must make a far, free-ranging detour,

"Then stretch down in the middle of the road,

"with head and feet and tail out, making sure

"your tongue is lolling and your two eyes closed.

"Then, find a hard support to hold your head

"And ignoring every threat that may appear,

"stay motionless until the coof comes near.

"And though you see a staff, continue quiet.

"Don't move a muscle and don't be afraid.

"Keep eyes tight closed, as though they'd been put out.

"Don't shrink at knee or neck or foot or head.

"That carter clown will imagine you are dead

"and quickly lug and lift you by the heels,

"as he did me, and fling you on the creels."

"But wait," the wolf says, "For as sure as God,

"I'll be too weighty for the coof to lift."

"Sir," said the fox, "He is a hefty bawd.

"One heave and you'll be high and dry aloft.

"But this much I can guarantee you -

"if you haul that herring safely out of there,

"You needn't fish again till Lent next year.

"I now say, in principio and pray,

"a blessing on your body, head to toe.

"Which means, henceforth, you travel on your way,

"protected against death. God speed you. Go!"

Up springs the wolf, then, and away out through

the gaps and gates, detouring to avoid

the fishman coming up along the road.

He makes a sturdy pillow of a stone,

then stretches out his four feet and his head,

lets his tongue loll and settles himself down,

just as the fox instructed, to feign dead.

He's over any fear he might have had.

The only thing he thinks is, "Herring-treat."

The last thing on his mind is fox deceit.

Along the carter comes, then, riding high,

now that the load is lighter.

In a rage that fox had fooled him and had got away,

Mad to his get own back. At which stage,

the wolf comes into view, at his old dodge,

stiffly stretched in the middle of the road.

The carter - you'll have guessed - jumps off the load.

Under his breath, he swears, "I was tricked once.

"Be damned if I am going to be again.

"The hammering I'll give you in your bones,

"your friend should have been given first time round."

With that, he lifts the holly in his hand

And comes down with such force upon his head,

the wolf convulsed and very nearly died.

Three blows he bore before he found his feet

And though he still was strong enough to flee,

the blows had blinded him. He had been hit so hard

he hardly saw the light of day.

The fox, who watched it all from where he lay,

laughed long and loud at wolf-who-would-be-boss,

brought to his knees, two-double, in collapse.

Thus, one who's not content with what's enough,

but covets all deserves to forfeit all.

The fox, when he saw the sad rout of the wolf,

thought, "Herring-treat!" And, then, "A bellyful!"

It takes, you will agree, both neck and skill,

to teach a boss what's honour among thieves.

The fox secures his herring hoard and leaves.

The wolf was lucky to escape alive.

He had been so unmercifully beaten.

He limped and could no longer roam nor reive.

The fox slipped off downwind back to his den,

Glad to have duped his master and the man.

The one was missing herring from his creels,

the other losing ground, blood to the heels.

As a child, they couldn't keep me from wells

and old pumps with buckets and windlasses.

I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells of water weed,

fungus and dank moss.

I heard Seamus Heaney in an interview once

describe his childhood in Bellaghy

as being almost medieval.

He speaks about going to the pump to pump water,

watching his father plough the fields with horses and his early poetry

is littered with that rural environment that shaped him.

When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch,

a white face hovered over the bottom.

Seamus's background, the farming background,

means he's very firmly localised in an agricultural kind of context,

in the same way that Henryson

or, for that matter, Burns were, of course.

He certainly belongs to that whole tradition

and always felt that he was.

And he constantly stresses that the way he saw poetry was influenced

by that commonsensical, grounded background that he came out of.

But it was always there. The background was always there,

in the same way that it's always there for Henryson.

So, I think he appreciates in Henryson that capacity

to write the parish, write about the local, as a way of dealing

with these huge universal themes of morality, justice, of greed,

of charity and that's also an important aim of Heaney's work.

And they even said that you could take the man from the bog,

but you couldn't take the bog from the man.

And maybe you couldn't take the bog from the man

because he remembered it with such affection.

The American poet Robert Frost had a phrase called

the sound of sense, which was not accent, but more cadence,

rhythm, the contours of your speech.

What he means is that, for getting the full sense of something,

the way it is expressed, the sound in which it is expressed,

is crucial to the meaning of it, as well.

And Henryson's sound of sense

is something I was familiar with, I think.

Then, heel and toe,

he danced a dance, as lightsome as a doe,

as if he'd heard a piper playing reels,

then paused and gazed and hunkered on his heels.

I did it, on the whole, fairly fast.

I mean, not all at once - on and off.

But I went and hid myself for two or three days

and got into the swing of the rhymes and so on and I was able to

use words that I hadn't used

or even heard since I was a lad.

Like "heckling", "scutching" and so on.

Things like that were like little hooks to hang the whole thing on.

The flax grew ripe, the farmer pulled it green,

combed and dressed the seed-heads, stooked the beets,

then buried it and steeped it in the burn.

Spread and dried it, beetled the stalks to bits

and scutched and heckled all to tow in plaits.

His wife then spun a linen thread from it

which the fowler took and wove into a net.

And this, of course, is the terminology of flax farming.

Still, you know, words like "stooked the beets", "beetled the stalks"

and so on. You have to know that language to see what is being

described and, of course, they're the same words.

They are, word for word, the same ones that Henryson is using

the late 15th century.

The lynt ryipit, the carll pullit the lyne,

rippillit the bollis and in beitis set,

it steipit in the burne and dryit syne.

Henryson writes in Scots,

but it's the same language as Ulster Scots, really, and,

of course, Seamus Heaney is the great exemplar

of the poetic virtues of Ulster Scots.

In the case of Henryson, of course, he has got carte blanche to pay

homage to Ulster Scots and I think that was part of the attraction.

But, at a burn, he turns and looks about,

the fox leaps clear and legs it from the creels.

This is not just a totally mainstream translation into English.

This is an English translation

with these wonderful Ulster Scotsisms here and there,

which add to the humour and to the profundity.

You know, he doesn't use Ulster Scots just for a laugh,

so to speak, though that is one of the important functions of it.

The carter shook with anger where he stood.

"It serves me right," he said, "I missed the cur.

"I should have had a staff of seasoned wood

"to hammer him and break his sleekit shoulder."

The one that caught my attention is the word "sleekit",

which is my most favourite Scottish word. Sleekit,

meaning sly and untrustworthy. Sleek, oily to the touch.

Sleekit. I've accused many people of it. Many politicians.

I'd say, "I wouldn't vote for him. He's got sleekit eyes."

"A gutting I'll give you, a herring treat,

"a second helping that you'll not forget."

He's a wonderful translator.

He's got that extraordinary gift of being able to represent

the original, giving the full value to the original,

and also have it in his own voice and that's a real art.

"God curse you, hellion, you and all your kin.

"Go sell your goods. I won't be in the bargain.

"Sell herring at the highest price you can -

"whatever herring's left."

In the case of Henryson,

Heaney is recovering a poet little known

and, outside Scotland, very rarely taught.

So, he's recuperating a voice, in an attempt to reanimate

medieval literature, particularly.

And the form of the piece allows us to do that,

because we can read Henryson on the left and Heaney on the right.

Our eye can flit between the two

and, I think, part of what Heaney does with this is to shine light

back on Henryson, as well as offering his own translation

and some of those translations are innovations.

Like, you know, words like "gobshite" or "songsters" or other little

dialect words that, kind of, creep in that are Heaney's innovation

but I think there's also, kind of, an act of reverence

and respect for the original.

He'll try and stay, sometimes, as close to the Scots as he can,

but on other occasions, he'll just step out

and do his own thing.

There's a lovely example at the end of the fable of The Two Mice,

where the country mouse, having visited her urban sister,

finally returns to her own home and the Scots says...

Bot I hard say scho passit to hir den

Als warme as woll suppose it wes not greit,

Full beinly stuffit baith but and ben

Of beinis and nuttis, peis, ry, and quheit.

There's lots of wordplay there because "full beinly stuffit"

in Scots means, very comfortably stuffed

and Seamus does something really simple and charming.

Though, I have heard she made it to her nest,

that was as warm as wool, if small and strait.

Packed snugly from back wall to chimney breast,

with peas and nuts and beans and rye and wheat.

"Packed snugly" is exactly right for "full beinly stuffit".

It gets that sense of the small, happy, snug world of the mouse.

Fantastic. Just fantastic.

So, he doesn't mind changing their vocabulary of Henryson

in all kinds of problematic ways for the scholar of Henryson.

Because Henryson is speaking to his contemporary situation.

Heaney has decided that, in order to make Henryson speak

to our contemporary situation, he needs to honour

the meter of the poem, rhyme royal,

but not so much honour the vocabulary of it.

So, rhyme royal is a very difficult seven-line stanza

that starts as if it's going to rhyme A, B, A, B

and then, as it continues, it adds another B rhyme and then C, C.

So, line five has to participate in both patterns. It puts a lot

of pressure on line five and the poet has to be really adept

at finding the extra B rhyme and making it work,

both in the first half of the poem and the second half of the poem.

And each stanza finishes in a couplet,

so it's great for long narrative,

but it's also very good for summing up that sense that you've

got to the end of something.

Of course, it's not the same as Henryson. Some things it misses.

It does some things better, other things not as well.

But it becomes a new poem in its own right.

And it makes new this text, which was precisely what Henryson

was doing with his Latin Aesop that he had.

He was making a new poem out of an old text.

And, in exactly the same way, I think,

Heaney was making it new for the 21st century in the same way

that Henryson made this ancient text new for the 15th century.

The drive to own possessions makes men blind.

Avarice rampant is renamed success.

But they forget the carter comes behind,

to spoil the sport and void what they invest.

The hollow of the wave follows the crest.

I, therefore, counsel all concerned -

remember Carter, fox and wolf, and what they stand for.

The loss of Seamus Heaney is incalculable, really.

It's, kind of, unbearable. The world of poetry as a whole was...

was not just kept alive by him, but was made serious by him.

He couldn't be taken lightly and, since he died

and the shock of that, there is, really, a real sense

of emptiness, I think, of waiting for the, you know,

literary world to find some other kind of prop that he provided always

and provided always with such good humour, of course,

and such generosity.

It's...it's very hard to see what happens next, really.