Jarl van Hoother–the prankquean

Jarl van Hoother and the prankquean are joined in a repeated contest over the threshold of Jarl’s home: she comes to his inn with a riddle, he answers by ordering the door shut, and she departs with one of the two young boys. Their encounters recur in three increasingly charged visits, but the ending shifts the balance. Jarl finally comes out to address her himself, and the household’s struggle is recast as a comic peace settlement.

First Visit and Separation

In an archaic, dreamlike setting, Jarl is at home with two young boys, Tristopher and Hilary, when the prankquean arrives. She sets herself before the door and asks why she looks like one pea in a pod. Jarl’s response is a command to shut the door. The exchange becomes an action: she takes Tristopher and runs west, while Jarl calls after her to stop and return.

The separation is prolonged into a fantastical forty-year walk. During that time, the prankquean arranges for four teachers to instruct Tristopher, and he becomes a learned man. She then returns with him. The boy’s departure is thus not simply reversed: he comes back to Jarl’s household after a long interval and a transformation in his education.

Second Visit and Repeated Pattern

The second encounter takes place after another interval. Jarl is again indoors, now drinking in the cellar, while Hilary and the dummy are below. The prankquean returns to the bar and asks why she looks like two peas in a pod. Jarl again answers by telling her to shut the door. This time she sets down one boy and takes up another, then runs toward Woeman’s Land.

Jarl pursues her with another appeal to stop and return with his earring; she replies that she likes what she is doing. As before, the escape is followed by a forty-year journey and instruction by four teachers. On the return, the boy has become a tristian. The recurrence preserves the same basic roles—her riddle and departure, his refusal and pursuit—while changing the number in her question and the boy’s course.

Third Visit and Reversal

At the third visit, the prankquean asks whether she looks like three peas in a pod. The encounter still begins at the mansion’s entrance, but this time Jarl does not remain behind the door. He comes out through the open archway, fully dressed in an elaborate civic and military costume, and orders her to close up shop. The scene replaces the earlier pattern of Jarl calling after her with a direct confrontation at the threshold.

The prankquean shuts the shutter. A huge, many-syllabled thunderword follows, and the gathering ends with everyone drinking freely. The narration presents the confrontation not as a simple victory by one side but as a comic civic settlement: the prankquean is to keep her position, the boys are to keep the peace, and Jarl is to remain on alert. The story declares that the quarrel has ended, even as its patterned repetitions make the resolution feel part of a cycle likely to be retold.

Structure and Significance

The relation is built from repeated approaches and refusals. Across the three visits, the prankquean’s question expands from one pea to two and then three; Jarl’s repeated command holds the doorway closed until he finally crosses it himself. The boys’ changing circumstances—Tristopher’s return as a learned man and the later boy’s transformation into a tristian—make each departure carry consequences beyond the immediate contest.

The ending turns a private household dispute into a noisy public scene of order and celebration. The thunderword, the drinking, and the assignment of roles make closure exuberant rather than final: the characters are given places in a peaceable arrangement, while the repeated form of the tale keeps their conflict available for another telling.