Episode 145 – Gruff – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 145 Show Notes

Source: Norwegian Folklore

This week on MYTH, it’s off to snowy Norway for a trio of world-famous goats. You’ll learn that there’s always someone bigger, that being a bully is a bad career plan, and that goats love violence almost as much as they love getting fat. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s a freaky Friday switcheroo for one unhappy couple. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 145, “Gruff”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This week, we’re going to meet a trio of some adorable goats who are also some of the most famous characters from folklore – the three billy goats gruff. This story was originally collected by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe in Norske Folkeeventyr or Norwegian Folktales between 1841 and 1844 (which is the version we’ll be using). Most often, these goats are described as brothers, but in some translations they are a baby, a father, and a grandfather (or even a baby, a mama, and a papa although the original story is very clear that all three are male – that’s what the billy in billy goat means, after all – so it would actually be a baby, a papa, and another papa). The word ‘gruff’ is typically used as the surname for the goats in English translations, but this is a mistranslation of the original word ‘bruse’. It’s more accurately thought of as a tuft or fuzzy clump of hair on the foreheads of domesticated goats. For the sake of convenience, I’ll stick with pretending that the goats are all named Gruff.
Once upon a time, three billy goats lived together in a little valley. If you’ve ever seen goats eat, you know that they can clear an entire field in nothing flat – those furry little fuckers can really pack it away. Having cleared out most of the green grass in the valley, they began to eye the lush grass of the hillside that rose up above them. Unfortunately, there was a swift, rushing river between the valley and the hill. Fortunately, the three goats could see a strong stone bridge spanning across that river in the near distance.
The grass hadn’t completely run out in the valley, so it was the youngest, smallest of the three billy goats Gruff who was shouldered away from the tastiest treats. Being hungry and filled with the boldness of youth, the youngest billy goat Gruff cantered over to the bridge. As he crossed, his hooves made a sharp ‘trip, trap, trip, trap’ on the stones. The sound echoed down into the ravine below the bridge, loud even over the rushing water and into the dank cave in the bank.
And that cave was inhabited. Out of the shadows emerged a huge, hideous, hungry troll with eyes as big as saucers, a warty, bulbous nose, and razor sharp teeth. As the littlest billy goat Gruff neared the center of the bridge, the troll clambered up the central support with surprising nimbleness. He snarled and loomed over the very, very small goat. “Who’s that trip trip trapping over my bridge?” “Oh, nobody much. It’s just me, the smallest billy goat Gruff. I was going up to that hillside over there to eat the sweet green grass.”
The little goat’s voice sounded even tinier in comparison to the booming roar of the troll. The enormous monster smiled a wide, ugly grin. “Is that so? And you thought you could just trespass on my bridge? You thought wrong, little goat. You’re on my bridge and I’m pretty hungry, so I’m gonna gobble you up.” The scared little goat backed a few steps away. “Oh, you don’t wanna do that, friend! I’m so small that I’d barely be a mouthful for such a big, strong brute. You know what you should do? You should wait for my big brother to come by. I’m sure he’ll be along shortly to go eat the sweet grass on the hill. He’s much bigger and juicier. He’ll make a much better meal for you.”
The troll considered the little goat’s words. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the tool shed, so he didn’t see the logical flaw with this argument. See, the troll could totally have just eaten the smallest goat and then waited for the larger goat to come along and eat him too. This isn’t a zero sum game. Fortunately for the smallest billy goat Gruff, the troll was easily confused by clever logic and fell for the goat’s simple trick. “Alright, well, okay then. Off with you – I’ll wait here for your brother.” And so the little goat pranced the rest of the way across the bridge and headed up the hill.
Some time passed (the story doesn’t give any indication of how much), and the grass in the valley continued to vanish down a pair of goat gullets. As it disappeared, the eldest goat began to shoulder the middle brother out of the way, leaving him hungry and disgruntled. It didn’t take long for him to eye the hill across the river where his little brother had so recently headed. That grass did look awful lush and awful sweet. His hunger overcame any sense of caution and the middle billy goat gruff traipsed towards the bridge. The smallest goat had done it, so how hard could it be?
He cantered over the field and onto the bridge. As his hooves hit the stones, that distinctive ‘trip trap trip trap’ echoed down into the ravine again where the troll was waiting eagerly. He scrambled up the central support and onto the bridge just as the second billy goat gruff neared the center. He snarled and loomed over the medium-sized goat. “Who’s that trip trip trapping over my bridge?” “Oh, nobody much. It’s just me, the middle billy goat Gruff. I was going up to that hillside over there to eat the sweet green grass.”
The goat’s voice was less cartoonishly tiny than his younger brother’s, but it was still no match for the roar of the massive troll. The enormous monster smiled a wide, ugly grin. “Is that so? And you thought you could just trespass on my bridge? You thought wrong, little goat. You’re on my bridge and I’m pretty hungry, so I’m gonna gobble you up. Your little brother was right about you being a bigger, tastier meal for me!” The concerned goat backed a few steps away. “Oh, you don’t wanna do that, friend! I’m bigger than my tiny little brother, sure, but I’m still pretty small compared to you. Look, I’d be all gristle and bone, hardly a proper meal for such a big, strong brute. You know what you should do? You should wait for my big brother to come by. I’m sure he’ll be along shortly to go eat the sweet grass on the hill. He’s much bigger and juicier than either of us. He’ll make a much better meal for you.”
The troll considered the little goat’s words. His bulb hadn’t gotten any brighter in the last hour or two, so he still didn’t see he could totally have just eaten both of the smaller goats and then waited for the largest goat to come along and eat him too. Fortunately the troll was confused again by the simple trick. “Alright, well, okay then. Off with you – I’ll wait here for your brother.” And so the middle goat pranced the rest of the way across the bridge and headed up the hill to join his little brother.
Some more time passed (the story doesn’t give any indication of how much), and the grass in the valley was now more or less entirely grazed away. With nothing else tasty to munch on, it didn’t take long for the largest billy goat gruff to eye the hill across the river where his two brothers had so recently headed. That grass did look awful lush and awful sweet. His hunger overcame any sense of caution and the eldest goat trotted towards the bridge. The two smaller goats had done it, so how hard could it be?
He cantered over the field and onto the bridge. As his hooves hit the stones, that distinctive ‘trip trap trip trap’ echoed down into the ravine again where the troll was waiting eagerly. He scrambled up the central support and onto the bridge just as the third billy goat gruff neared the center. He snarled and loomed over the fairly hefty goat. “Who’s that trip trip trapping over my bridge?” “Oh, nobody much. It’s just me, the eldest billy goat Gruff. I was going up to that hillside over there to eat the sweet green grass.”
This largest goat’s voice was surprisingly deep and rough, and it took the hideous troll by surprise. Some dim part of him wondered if maybe he should take a moment to consider the situation before acting, but he stomped that impulse down. The troll had already let two succulent morsels trip trap by undevoured and he was getting ravenous. Time to eat. The enormous monster smiled a wide, ugly grin. “Is that so? And you thought you could just trespass on my bridge? You thought wrong, little goat. You’re on my bridge and I’m extremely hungry, so I’m gonna gobble you up. Your little brother was right about you being a bigger, tastier meal for me!”
The eldest billy goat Gruff backed a few steps away, but it wasn’t in fear. He was just giving himself enough runway for a nice, strong charge. He tossed his head at the still-grinning troll and grinned right back. “Come and get it then, if you think you’re monster enough for the job. I’ve got two wicked spears right here just itching to gouge your eyeballs out of your skull through your fucking ear holes. I’ve got a thick skull to bash your brains in and sharp hooves to crush your mangled body to bloody bits after you fall. Get some!” With a furious roar, the troll charged and, with his own angry bleat, the goat charged back.
The troll was used to overwhelming his victims through fear and overwhelming size. The largest billy goat gruff on the other hand was agile and nimble in addition to being a walking slab of muscle. If you’ve ever been on the business end of a billy goat’s head butt, then you know that even a small one can knock you off balance. A goat as big, angry, and determined as this goat was straight up lethal. He dashed in between the troll’s grasping fingers and rammed his wickedly sharp horns into the troll’s shocked face. The monster’s eyeballs popped like overripe grapes and he roared in fear and pain, two things he wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of. He dropped to the bridge, clutching at the bloody ruin of his face, all thoughts of a goaty dinner forgotten.
Unfortunately for him, the eldest billy goat Gruff had decidedly not forgotten about the troll. As he had threatened, he reared up above the wailing troll and dashed the monster’s skull to pulp with his sharp hooves. Once the beast finally stopped twitching, he speared the corpse on his horns and, with a single toss of his mighty head, he threw his fallen foe into the roaring waters below. As the dead troll’s body was swept away by the cascading river, the victorious goat frolicked happily the rest of the way across the bridge and up onto that hill to munch on all that sweet green grass. All three goats had so much to eat that they did indeed get very pleasantly fat. So much so, in fact, that they could scarcely walk home afterwards. Fortunately, there was no troll to stop them on the return trip so it didn’t matter how slowly they waddled. And, as the original tale says, “snip, snap, snout, this tale’s told out.”
There was a lot less eye gouging and skull crushing in the version I heard as a kid, but the basic tale was otherwise pretty much unchanged. The story I originally heard just had the goat running between the troll’s legs and then head-butting him in the ass so that the troll fell off the bridge and was swept away by the river. Depending on how severe the rapids are in that particular stretch of river, that could still easily be a death sentence but I didn’t really think about that bit as a kid.
This is one of those stories that gets referenced all over the place, but my favorite incarnation is probably the one from the Dresden Files novels. In those, the smallest Gruff is roughly human-sized and wickedly lethal but, when bested, warns that his big brother will be along soon to smash the nosy wizard’s face in. The second Gruff is every bit as big as the troll in this story appears to be, and is also every bit as dangerous, which makes it all the more surprising when the eldest Gruff turns out to be a small, Yoda-looking dude. And, much like Yoda, he proves to be incredibly dangerous despite his apparent frailty and diminutive stature. In either case, the troll is defeated and the goats are safe to chow down to their hearts’ content, which means it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s ungrateful asshole is the surly husband.
This story also comes from Norske Folkeeventyr by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe and is a bit different from the usual folk tale fare. Once upon a time, there lived a man and his wife in a small, tidy house on a small farm. Alas, the husband in this tale was a total asshole, surly and ill-tempered for no good reason. Well, he certainly thought he had good reason. See, he spent his days toiling out in the fields under the blazing sun, sweating and breathing hard, and came home each night tired and dirty. Meanwhile, his wife, the woman he supposedly loved, got to sit at home all day in the nice cool shade and do precisely dick. How was it fair that he had toil away in the dust while she got to lie about and enjoy a life of leisure?
On this particular day, it was haymaking season and the surly husband was in a particularly ugly mood. He stomped home from the fields as the sun was setting grumbling and grousing to himself, quite loudly and with a lot of very pointed cursing. By the time he reached his home and angrily threw the door open, he was practically snarling with misplaced rage. His wife was used to her husband’s terrible moods (which she definitely didn’t deserve to have to weather, let alone manage) and she soon got him calmed down enough to speak coherently.
“It’s bullshit is what it is, wife! I’m breaking my back out in the fields all day long to put food on the table and you get to sit here doing whatever the fuck you please in comfort. What I wouldn’t give to be in your shoes for just one day!” If this was a 90s comedy, the couple would be switching bodies right about now but there’s not much magic in this particular tale. Instead, his long-suffering wife realized she could just give him what he wanted and maybe it would teach him something. At the very least, it would shut down his incessant complaining for a while. “If that’s how you feel, dear husband, then let’s do that! Don’t be cross with me; instead, let’s switch jobs tomorrow. I’ll go out with the mowers to cut down hay and you stay here and do the housework. How’s that sound?”
For all that he’d demanded exactly this, the husband hadn’t actually given the idea much thought before. He did so now, and it seemed like a perfect situation: his wife would get to see firsthand just how hard he worked and would maybe have more sympathy for his totally valid anger, and he would get a nice vacation in the process. It would be nice to sit around with his feet up for a day. “You’ve got a deal, wife. Tomorrow you take care of the fields and I’ll handle the house.”
And so it was that, early the next morning, the wife whistled on her way out the door with the scythe slung over her shoulder. Smiling at the warmth of the sun on her face, she headed out with the mowers to the hayfield. Meanwhile, inside, the husband let out a deep sigh of relief and looked around. He was munchy. Glancing around the kitchen, he saw a hunk of bread that looked awfully tasty. Alas, he had finished the last of the butter last night, so he would need to churn more before he could eat. If his wife could do it, then it couldn’t be that hard, right? He set everything up and began to churn, which turned out to be harder work than he’d expected. Thirstier work, too. He longed for a mug of ale to whet his whistle, but that was down in the cellar. Groaning at the unfairness of it all, he headed downstairs to tap a barrel and get himself a drink.
Just as he was knocking in the bung and getting ready to hammer the tap into the cask, he heard the trip trap trip of the family pig wandering into the kitchen. The man rushed back upstairs, cursing himself for leaving the door open with fresh cream just sitting out in the churn. Of course the pig would follow his nose and come looking for a way to eat the tasty cream. Tap still in his hand, he crested the stairs to see that he’d been too slow – the pig had already knocked over the churn and was quite happily lapping up the spilled cream. The pig’s rooting was making the mess even worse, spreading the cream all over the floor.
The man’s rage boiled over now and he ran screaming at the pig, tap completely forgotten in his clenched fist. The pig realized that it had fucked up and scrambled desperately for freedom. It wasn’t fast enough. Just as it reached the door, the man caught up to it and kicked it in the head as hard as he could. Years of pent-up rage came out in that kick and the poor piggy dropped dead. Yeah, this guy is a total dick and I’m frankly shocked that his wife has managed to avoid the pig’s fate. I feel bad for her (and for everyone else who ever has to deal with this hot-headed dipshit).
It was only as the pig lay dead on the floor that the man remembered the tap still in his hand. Shit. He raced back down the stairs to the cellar, but the barrel that he’d opened had spilled out onto the floor. Every last drop of ale had drained out and turned the ground to sticky mud. So now the man was dirty, angry, and still very thirsty, but he was even farther than ever from having any butter for his bread (or for tonight’s dinner, for that matter, which would be his job to prepare).
Cursing, he stomped out to the dairy shed and found enough cream still left to refill the churn for butter. He righted the overturned churn, still surrounded by spilled cream peppered with piggy hoof prints and his own boot prints. He began churning again, and it was only as he was looking at all the spilled cream that he remembered his milking cow. The sun was already high in the sky, and she was still shut up in the barn and hadn’t had a drop to drink or a bite to eat, nor had she been milked. Snarling at the churn as though it was the tool’s fault somehow, he stomped over to the barn to take the cow out.
He led her out on her halter and looked out towards the distant meadow down in the valley where his wife always took the cow to graze. It was very far away and would clearly take far too long to reach when he had so much still to do around the house. Glancing up at said house, he noticed the grass growing right there on the sod-thatched roof. Surely that would be enough to tide one cow over for one day, right?
The house lay tucked up against a steep hill. The man eyed the gap and figured he could probably lay a plank of wood across it and lead the cow over. Then he could let her graze on the sod roof while he got back to making butter. It seemed a perfect plan until the couple’s baby came crawling into the kitchen. In a move sure to win him ‘father of the year’, the husband cursed at the baby as it crawled through the muddy cream. “Can’t you just stay put for five minutes, you little shit goblin? Fuck me, if I leave you here alone while I take the cow up to the roof, you’ll knock the churn over again. There’s literally no more cream to make butter, so we can’t have that I guess. Why do bad things always happen to me?”
You might be expecting him to take the baby with him, but no – he strapped the fucking butter churn to his back to protect it from the baby, which he left crawling in the filth the man had made. I told you, father of the year. Leaving the baby unsupervised, the man went out to find the cow. He took a couple of steps towards the hill when he noticed the well standing a little ways off. The cow hadn’t had any water yet today, so he really should give her some before bringing her up to the roof to graze. He went over and leaned down to pull up the bucket, completely forgetting the full butter churn strapped to his back. The last of the cream ran down his shoulders to splatter into the well, and was lost. Maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t bring the baby after all. It’s safer without dad’s ‘help’.
By now, most of the day had passed and dinner time was nearing. Not only had he made a giant mess of the house, the surly husband had managed to waste literally all of the cream, so there would be no butter for his bread and no butter for dinner. Well that utterly fucked his menu, so the man decided that maybe porridge would be his best bet. All he had to do was boil that over the fire. How hard could it be?
The one good thing I can say about this asswipe is that his incompetence is not weaponized. He really is just this bad at everything he’s trying. He could just about manage filling up a pot with water and hanging it over the fire though, so that went off without a hitch. He still hadn’t fed the poor cow (though she’d had some watery cream at least) so he led her up across the plank and onto the roof. Only, now that he was up here, it seemed awful high. What if she wandered too close to the edge, fell, and broke her leg? They’d already lost their pig in a freak accident that surely no one could say was his fault, so he couldn’t risk losing the cow too. Down below, the man heard the water begin to boil so he needed to hurry.
In a fit of inspiration, he tied a rope around her neck and lowered the other end down through the chimney to the room below. Snatching it out before it could catch on fire (which it almost did), he tied the other end to his own leg. That way, he could tug on it if he heard her getting too close to the edge. Just in time too, because the pot was about to boil over and he still hadn’t ground the oatmeal for the porridge. Grinding meal proved every bit as tedious and exhausting as everything else today had, and the man lost himself in his frustration at the never-ending work. Which is why he didn’t notice when the cow did indeed wander over to the edge of the roof and stumbled off. At least, not until the rope around her neck yanked his feet out from under him. He banged his head hard on the pot of boiling water as the rope dragged him across the floor and up into the chimney.
And there they stuck, the husband wedged in the chimney and unable to move and the cow swinging outside the window, trapped between the heaven and the earth. She mooed in desperate terror at her completely unexpected predicament but there was no one to help her. By now, the surly husband’s wife had waited as long as she possibly could out in that hayfield. He was supposed to call her in from the field when dinner was ready (as she herself had done without fail for so many nights), but of course he hadn’t done so. Sighing in exasperation at the absolutely useless man-baby she’d married, she shouldered her scythe and marched home.
As she neared, she saw the poor, terrified cow being slowly strangled as it dangled and she rushed over to cut it free. As she did so, she heard a yell and a splash from inside. Hurrying through the door, she found the house in utter chaos. The baby was filthy and covered in cream that had been tracked all over the floor. A dead pig nearly blocked her way in and had apparently been left to rot. She could smell ale heavy in the air, mixing with the smoke from the porridge pot that had boiled over and started to burn. And inside that, upside down was her husband who had fallen when she cut the cow’s rope.
And that’s where the story ends. I really hope that maybe this poor goodwife finally got rid of her useless excuse for a husband, or at least that he learned something from this experience and grew as a person. The surly husband doesn’t seem terribly inclined to introspection from what we’ve seen, but maybe he’ll surprise us. Whatever else had happened, he surely has learned that taking care of the house isn’t nearly as easy and luxurious as he’d always imagined.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth, on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod, and on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, it’s once again my favorite time of year – Halloween! We’ll head to the shadowy forests of old Germany where the young women are being stalked by a mysterious threat. You’ll learn how to use an egg as a trap, how to throw a killer wedding party, and how to really brighten up the place with a human skull. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll dive into the history of a very real big bad wolf. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.