Editing Boggart (section)

==''The Farmer and the Boggart''==
In one old tale, said to originate from the village of [[Mumby]] in the [[Lincolnshire]] countryside, the boggart is described as being rather squat, hairy, and smelly. In the story, a farmer offers a deal to a boggart inhabiting his land; the boggart may choose either the part of the crop that grows above the ground or the part below it. When the boggart chooses the part below the ground, the farmer plants barley; at harvest time, the boggart is left with only stubble. The boggart then demands the part above ground instead, so the farmer plants potatoes.  Once again left with nothing to show for his efforts, the enraged boggart leaves the area.<ref>Saga Book, pp. 36-39</ref>

An alternative telling includes a third episode where the farmer and the boggart are to harvest the crop (wheat) from either side of the field, each getting what he harvests.  However the farmer plants iron rods in the boggart's half before the reaping, blunting his scythe, and allowing the farmer to harvest almost the entire field.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Tales of Old Lincolnshire|author=Adrian Gray|date=1900|edition=reprinted 2001|isbn=978-1-85306-089-2|publisher=Countryside Books|pages=29–34}}</ref>

This story is identical to the European fable ''The Farmer and the Devil'', cited in many seventeenth-century French works. (See Bonne Continuation, Nina M. Furry et Hannelore Jarausch).