A boy determined to become the master of all masters. A magician who refuses to let his greatest pupil escape.
When Jack’s mother insists that her son be apprenticed to someone capable of teaching him more than any ordinary master, his father begins an impossible search. Then a mysterious stranger appears, driving a black horse and a sleigh that rises straight into the air.
His name is Farmer Weatherbeard.
Carried away to the magician’s distant home, Jack learns extraordinary secrets of magic and transformation—but soon discovers that his apprenticeship has become a prison. Desperate to rescue him, Jack’s father journeys through enchanted forests and seeks help from three strange old women who command the animals, fish, and birds of the world.
Jack finally escapes, but Farmer Weatherbeard is not easily defeated. After a costly mistake places the young apprentice back in his master’s power, the two launch into a furious shape-shifting chase. Fish battles pike, dove flees hawk, and a final contest of magic unfolds within the palace of a courageous princess.
Filled with flying sleighs, enchanted animals, clever transformations, sinister magic, and fairy-tale adventure, *Farmer Weatherbeard* is a fast-moving Norwegian folktale about courage, ingenuity, and a student who becomes more powerful than his master.
Presented in Andrew Lang’s classic *Red Fairy Book* collection.
