THE DIVINER

Jean-Pierre is lazy, but he is also clever. And so instead of feeding pigs or plowing fields he sets himself up as a diviner. His luck in predicting and guessing is good, and soon he finds himself at the castle, demanding three days of luxury food and lodging in return for his promise to find the queen's missing ring. Ills musing aloud about the three days going by leads the three servants who stoic the ring to believe that he is onto them--and so Jean-Pierre lucks out again, gaining possession of the ring and revealing its whereabouts in an impressively mysterious manner. An unexceptional but entertaining tale, based on a folk tale told by the author's French Canadian grandmother and shrewdly illustrated with an amused onlooker's perspective.