Story - The Shrew: Animal Talk and the Nosy Wife

Through an accidental happening, a young farmer learns to understand the language of animals. However he is warned not to reveal this secret or he will die.

At home, his wife becomes curious and suspicious when he laughs (at animal talk) without her knowing why. She insists on knowing what is so funny, but he refuses to tell her. This infuriates her. (1) She keeps nagging and nagging for the answer (2), and he keeps yelling that it is none of her business.

His wife's constant nagging and her refusal to obey him (3) irritate him so much that he is afraid he might blurt out the truth and die. To get some help, he asks her to run and fetch the priest.

While she is gone, he overhears the rooster in the yard ridiculing him. "Look," the rooster says to the other animals, "I can rule over so many hens in this yard, and that man cannot even control one woman." All the animals look at him and laugh. (4)

He then decides to behave differently. When his wife returns saying the priest is on the way, the husband takes off his belt and beats his wife unconscious. (5) The priest arrives, surveys the scene, and leaves immediately. When the wife regains consciousness, she is no longer interested in hearing explanations. And she was not nosy any more. (6)

1. The Shrew refuses to be subservient to her husband.

2. She stands up for herself and directly confronts and contradicts her husband.

3. She can be independent, determined, curious, ambitious, unfaithful, willful, disobedient.

4. These qualities are generally unacceptable to a husband and to the wider community.

5. To make her subservient, the Shrew is usually beaten or killed.

6. Shrew stories usually end when the husband forces the wife to become a docile subservient woman.