Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the social reality and material culture underlying the popular international folktale of The Master’s Good Counsels (ATU 910B), which deals with the everyday situation of the migrant labourer, offering an eloquent testimonial of this commonplace trauma of the poor.

Paper long abstract:

The Master's Good Counsels (ATU 910B) is found throughout Europe and further afield, and is particularly popular in areas with a history of migrant labour. The folktale deals with the adventures of a migrant labourer and his eventual return home to his wife and children. It is classified as a novella tale, a folktale genre that has a high degree of social realism. The world portrayed in the folktale is the world of the landless labourer, who has to leave his family to earn a living, is dependent on his employer for food, lodgings and equitable wages; on his homeward journey he finds himself at the mercy of highwaymen as well as the authorities, and is beset by doubts about his wife's constancy.

This paper analyses the almost 300 versions of the folktale recorded in Ireland, most of them by the Irish Folklore Commission, in communities that had direct experience of migrant labour. Every aspect of daily life at the bottom rung of rural society is reflected in the narrative, and the tale thus serves as an invaluable witness to Ireland's social history and material culture. Above all else, it encapsulates the community's collective response to the trauma of forced economic migration and offers a blue-print for a better future and a more equitable social contract.