Ti Jean was a very cun­ning young man. Be­cause of his com­mon sense, he had won a cas­tle and many acres of land from the Dev­il. One day as he was pass­ing near the Dev­il’s cas­tle, he saw the Dev­il’s daugh­ter comb­ing her hair at the win­dow. So beau­ti­ful was the young la­dy that Ti Jean fell in love with her.

Sev­er­al days lat­er, he saw the Dev­il sit­ting in the shade of a tree at the road­side. Ti Jean ap­proached him. He told the Dev­il, "Mr Dev­il sir, I saw your beau­ti­ful daugh­ter, I love her dear­ly and wish to mar­ry her." The Dev­il looked care­ful­ly at the young man, then said, "No man shall mar­ry my daugh­ter un­til he proves that he is much smarter than I am. I will give you two tasks, and if you can ful­fil them, then you shall mar­ry my daugh­ter." Ti Jean ac­cept­ed the chal­lenge. He replied, "That I am will­ing to try, Mr Dev­il."

The next morn­ing, the Dev­il took Ti Jean to a large plot of land in the for­est. Look­ing at the young man, the Dev­il said, "My first task for you is this, I want you to chop down all these trees, clear the land and plant it through with plan­tain plants. By the end of to­day, the plants must grow and bear fruits, which must be­come ripe, and when you are re­turn­ing to my cas­tle this evening, you bring me the best bunch of ripe plan­tains from that gar­den."

Ti Jean won­dered and wor­ried as the Dev­il left. In a while, he sat down with tears in his eyes for he knew that such a task was im­pos­si­ble for him to achieve. It was mid­day when the Dev­il’s daugh­ter brought him a bowl of soup for his lunch. The beau­ti­ful daugh­ter asked him, "Why are you cry­ing Ti Jean? Can’t you do such a sim­ple task?" Ti Jean an­swered, "I will sure­ly fail and I'll be put in­to your fa­ther’s prison for­ev­er."

She soon gave him the soup, and as he drank, she sang him a sooth­ing song. Hav­ing fin­ished the soup, he put down the bowl and fell fast asleep be­neath the tree. The sun was al­ready set­ting be­hind the trees when Ti Jean was awak­ened by a loud hum of bees. When he looked around he could not be­lieve, for as far as he could have seen, there were plan­tain trees in­stead of for­est trees. Huge bunch­es of plan­tain were all around which at­tract­ed the bees. The beau­ti­ful daugh­ter had mirac­u­lous­ly per­formed the task for him.

Hap­pi­ly, Ti Jean took the bunch of ripe plan­tains to the Dev­il. He could not be­lieve, and so he hur­ried down to the gar­den of plan­tains. He smiled as he looked around in dis­be­lief. He pat­ted Ti Jean on the shoul­der. He said, "Very good, my man, to­mor­row I shall give you an­oth­er task to fur­ther prove your worth to mar­ry my daugh­ter."

The next morn­ing, The Dev­il called Ti Jean and gave him a saw. He or­dered, "Here, my good man, take this saw and go down to the riv­er and saw the wa­ter in­to boards. If you can ac­com­plish this task, then you de­serve to have my daugh­ter in mar­riage."

Ti Jean went down to the riv­er. He took the saw and tried to saw the wa­ter in­to boards. Sev­er­al times over he tried but failed. At length, he cried him­self to sleep un­der the tree. When it was lunchtime, the Dev­il’s daugh­ter brought his lunch. She awak­ened him from his sleep, and as she of­fered him the lunch, she whis­pered a se­cret plan in his ear and ran away. As soon as he was fin­ished eat­ing, he re­called the se­cret plan, which she whis­pered in his ear. He has­tened to the Dev­il at his cas­tle. He said to the Dev­il,

"Mr Dev­il sir, I have made thou­sands of boards for you. The boards are too hard and heavy. If you will now make me a soft pad out of smoke, I will put that pad of smoke on my head to cush­ion the load of boards so I can bring them to you." The Dev­il lit a big fire of dried wood in his back­yard. As it smoked, he danced about in the cloud of smoke, try­ing to catch the smoke to make the pad. He tried sev­er­al times over but failed. Hav­ing failed, he grew in­to a fit of anger, as he shout­ed to Ti Jean,

"You fool! How do you ex­pect me to make a pad out of smoke when I can­not even catch the smoke?"

"Very well, Mr Dev­il," smiled the cun­ning Ti Jean. "If you can­not make a pad out of smoke, then how do you ex­pect me to make boards out of wa­ter?" The seem­ing­ly con­fused Dev­il paused thought­ful­ly, then smiled with Ti Jean, as he nod­ded his head in ap­proval. He said, "I now see that you are a very smart young man and de­serve my daugh­ter’s hand in mar­riage." And so, Ti Jean and the Dev­il’s beau­ti­ful daugh­ter were hap­pi­ly mar­ried. They both went to live in the cas­tle which Ti Jean had won from the Dev­il some time be­fore. The Dev­il smiled, "You both go live in your own cas­tle, for two smart men can­not live in the same house."

As you en­joy the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, you can look out for the many por­tray­als of The Dev­il as pre­sent­ed in blue, black or red in our Tra­di­tion­al Mas on stage and street pa­rades, in our cities, towns and vil­lages through­out our coun­try. It is a part of pre­serv­ing our nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­itage. We wish you all our fans and read­ers a hap­py, en­joy­able and safe Car­ni­val.