Peg Bearskin: A Traditional Newfoundland Tale

and Peg lay down on the floor, but she couldn't sleep. She twisted and turned all night, just couldn't get to sleep. There was something bad about that place, she could feel it right down into her bones. So she got up and she walked around the old woman's house. Now, she soon knew that the old woman was a witch, for in her kitchen she found a decanter that could never be emptied. She poured wine into it, turned it upside down, the wine flowed and flowed and flowed. Water same thing, milk same thing. Flowed and flowed. Never stopped. Then out in the barn, she found a lantern that could shine a half mile light. You didn't have to fill it. You didn't have to light it. All you had to do was touch it, and it shone for a half a mile. And touch it Peg did, and it shone for half a mile ... .Ð from Peg Bearskin

Peg's big, ugly and hairy, but she has the wit, tenacity, and courage to outfox a witch and find husbands for her two beautiful sisters and one for herself as well. A typical folktale? Well, perhaps. But Peg is no typical heroine, and the ending of her story is no typical ending. This story was adapted by Philip Dinn and Andy Jones for "Jack-Five-Oh," a storytelling play written to mark the 50th anniversary of Newfoundland's entry into confederation with Canada; Mercedes Barry, who told the story in some versions of the play, helped refine the adaptation.

Jones and Dinn created their version from that told by Mrs. Elizabeth Brewer of Freshwater, Placentia Bay, and collected in Herbert Halpert and John Widdowson's Folktales of Newfoundland. Elly Cohen's linocut illustrations perfectly capture the dark humour and beauty of the tale.