Words: Mikal Hrafspa (Mikal the Ram)
Notes from Mikal:
This is another adult tale. The Arabs seem to have a real flair for the bawdy. I cleaned
it up a bit, and set it in Norway for a change of pace. It has been a staple of the
campfire tales for a few years and fits in well with the other short bawdy tales given
here.
A PRIEST CAME TO NORWAY as many had, and worked to establish a church in a village in the west of the country. He was very successful in that he had converted most of the villagers to the Christian faith. One day a prominent woman of the Norse came to him and demanded a divorce. This disturbed the priest, and he tried to explain. "The church does not allow divorce except in extreme circumstances. Why do you wish to divorce you husband?"
"My husband," she said, "does not have what a woman wants. He is a good man but he is so poorly endowed he cannot give me his husbandly due."
The priest was aghast. "This is not a proper reason! The church cannot give a divorce for that!"
"Then I will leave the church," she cried, "And go back to the old gods! And more than that I will get the other women in the village to go with me!"
The priest was frightened at this, and asked her to wait a few days while he searched the holy writ. But not long after she left, the husband came in.
"Holy father," he cried, "You cannot give my wife a divorce! If she leaves she will take all the money and goods she brought into our marriage, and I will be a poor man. Should that happen I will not be able to give the generous gifts to the church you have enjoyed."
"Now what am I to do?" the priest worried. "I must think on this problem and find a solution."
The next day he called both the husband and the wife into the church and told them his plan. "It is not meet that the church give a divorce without proof of your husband's lack, so I will call the men of the village and ask them to look at your husband's nakedness and decide if you are justified in asking for a divorce."
"No!" exclaimed the wife. "Men do not know what a woman needs! If any should be called in to judge, it should be the women!"
"I cannot have your husband stand naked before the women of the village!" The priest cried. "There is only one way I could allow this; I will bore a hole in the door of the church, and we will gather all the women of the village into the church. Then your husband will go outside and place that part which he inherited from his father through the hole in the door. All the women will then pass by the door and judge for themselves if he is lacking in any way. And to make sure your husband is not tempted into sin by this, I will stand beside him and pray with him."
The wife agreed, and went to gather the women of the village. When she was gone, the husband pleaded with the priest. "Holy father, I cannot do this! My wife is right, I do not have as much of my father's inheritance as other men!"
"Do not worry," the priest told him. "I will help you in this."
When all the women were gathered into the church, the priest bored a hole in the door and shut the women inside. Then he stood himself before the door, lifted his cassock, and placed what he had inherited through the door instead of the husband.
As the women passed by, the first said, "Well, that is not too bad."
The next said, "That is more than my husband has!"
But as the third woman walked by, she cried out; "This is not your husband! It is a fraud!"
"What do you mean?" asked the women around her.
"It's the priest! I'd know him anywhere!"