The Eighth Tribe, 1980 (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1980-03-01 / 3. szám
Page 8 THE EIGHTH TRIBE March, 1980 JANCSY THE BILLY-GOAT Reprinted from a book “A TRANSYLVANIAN LEGACY” written by Fredrick H. Barth — 302 pages — Price $11.00. (Use the Order Coupon on last page.) Most of the villages in our area owned a billygoat who was responsible to see to it that the village goats multiplied. Zsidve also had its own billy-goat, whose name was Jancsy, a name much too nice for this mean and ugly animal. He produced such an aura of bad odor that one could smell him from far away, without even seeing him. The bad smell would persist long after the beast had left the area. Not only did he smell dreadful, but he was vicious and terribly aggressive. We children were afraid of him and stayed away from him or sought refuge behind a closed gate when Jancsy approached us. The billy-goat was so mean that he would immediately move for attack if somebody would get close to him. The main reason for this aggressiveness was that we teased the animal whenever we had an opportunity. Of course, from a safe distance. When the goatherd came home from the pasture the caretaker of the village stables had to walk ahead to the edge of the village and take Jancsy home on a chain, to prevent him from doing harm to anyone. He would even attack larger animals. The billy-goat was so vicious that when furious he would attack anything moving towards him. One time, for instance, he was so mad that he attacked the buffalo-bull on the street. The bull, however, was more than Jancsy could handle. The bull took the billy-goat on his horns and threw him over his back. That calmed Jancsy down for a little while, but soon enough he was just as mean and vicious as before. It happened sometimes that the caretaker missed picking him up. In such a case the animal strayed around on the street, while everyone ran behind a gate. My friends and I often teased Jancsy and threw rocks at him, but always from a safe distance. He would run after us, foaming with rage. We would get behind some closed gate and continue to tease him from there. When I was about eight years old I had an experience with Jancsy that I would never forget. It was on a Sunday afternoon late in October of 1920. It had been raining for several days and the ground on the street had turned to almost knee-deep mud and was covered with numerous puddles. Few people had dared to go outside that Sunday; even the church was almost empty. The rain had finally ceased. My mother had baked the day before and wanted to send her friend, Sari Sester, a few pieces of “Hanklich” (Saxon pie). She placed them on a plate and covered the plate with a white linen napkin. She admonished me to be very careful and watch my steps so that I might not get my boots too dirty in the muddy street. Sari Sester was my mother’s best friend. The two of them had many things in common. They had lost their husbands and each had three children of the same ages. They remained best friends all their lives. As soon as I walked out of the house, I noticed that particular smell in the air, before I even saw Jancsy. When I walked out to the street I saw him half-way between our house and that of Sari Sester, standing in the middle of the street. As I walked along the path close to the buildings I tried to avoid the deep mudholes while keeping my eyes on Jancsy. He gave all his attention to the many kids and adults behind the gates and windows. The kids were yelling and throwing rocks at him. He was foaming and bleating like mad, knowing that he couldn’t touch any of those who were teasing him. Even though he was standing in the mud up to his knees, he made an impressive appearance; he was a very big animal, with long yellowish hair. His horns were of remarkable length, bent towards his back and twisted in spirals. As I came nearer the people from behind the windows and gates warned me and insisted that I should get behind the next front gate. However, I had a chore to do and was determined to do it. I had often tricked Jancsy and passed by him and felt that I could do it again. On the other side of the street there were some fruit trees standing at intervals of about ten meters from each other. In order to protect the trees from the buffalos who rubbed off the dried mud from their skin against them, the peasants had surrounded the trees with three wooden poles stuck into the ground. I had repeatedly played “Catch me if you can” with Jancsy around the tree. It was a dangerous game, but the billy-goat could not move fast enough around the tree to catch me. I thought that I could do the same this time and walked through the mud across the street to the next tree. When I reached the tree closest to Jancsy, he turned his head and looked at me for a short while, then slowly started to come closer to the tree behind which I was standing. The billy-goat knew that he couldn’t do me any harm while I had the tree between us, because I could move faster around the tree than he could. Before he could move back from one side and try to hit me from the other, I had easily moved and taken a safer position. This exciting game went on for some time
