THE WOODCUTTER'S DUCK

This is another of Turska's synthetic folktales, not as flashy as Tamara and the Sea Witch (1972, p. 256, J-76) but with similarly second hand motifs and stock illustration. Here a flamboyantly arrayed army enters a scene of thatched roof huts and happy peasants. When the leader demands woodcutter Bartek's duck for his dinner, Bartek -- whose good deed for a frog has earned him the ability to raise and quell storms -- so terrorizes and exposes the commander that the men tear off his scarlet cape and staff and ride off with the woodcutter as their new leader. Proving, one presumes, that the reward for kindness to animals is military leadership.