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Who knows? It's Celtic. (standard:fairy tales, 2165 words) | |||
Author: Bait | Added: Sep 20 2000 | Views/Reads: 4295/2446 | Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes) |
Some sort of Celtic story. | |||
HUDDEN AND DUDDEN AND DONALD O’LEARY There once were two farmers named Hudden and Dudden, they had poultry in their yards, sheep on the upland and scores of cattle grazing alongside the river bed. But for all that they weren’t happy. For just between their two farms lived a very poor but kind gentleman named Donald O’Leary. Donald had a hovel over his head and a thin strip of land barely enough to feed his one cow, (conveniently named Daisy). The poor cow did her best, but a rare treat when Donald got a little milk or a roll of butter from her. You would think there was little here to make Hudden and Dudden jealous, and so it is the more one has, the more one wants, and Donald’s neighbours lay awake at night scheming of how they could get his little strip of land. Daisy, poor thing, they never thought of; she was just a bag of bones. One day Hudden and Dudden met and they were soon grumbling along the tune of ‘If only we could get that vagabond O’Leary out of the county.’ ‘Let’s kill Daisy’, suggested Hudden, ‘if that doesn’t clear him out then nothing will!’ No sooner said than agreed and it wasn’t long before the two scheming farmers crept up to the little shed where Daisy was trying her best to chew her cud, but she hadn’t had as much grass in one day as would cover you hand. And when Donald came to see if his only friend was snug for the night, she could lick his hand once before the poison took effect and she dropped dead. Donald was drastically downhearted but began to think if any good could come of this. He thought and he thought and the next day, early in the morning you could have seen him trudging off to the fair with Daisy’s hide over his shoulder, every penny he had jingling in his pockets. Just before he got to the fair he made several slits in the hide and put a coin in each of them. Then he walked into the best inn in town as bold as if he owned the place, and hanging up the hide on a nail in the wall, he sat down. ‘A shot of your best whisky’, says he to the landlord. But the landlord didn’t like his shabby looks. ‘Is it fearing I won’t pay you, you are?’ says Donald. ‘Why I have here a hide that gives me all the money I want!’ And with that he hit a whack with his stick and out popped a penny. The landlord opened his eyes, as you may fancy. ‘What’ll you take for that hide?’ ‘It’s not for sale my good man.’ ‘Will you take a gold piece?’ ‘It’s not for sale I tell you, hasn’t it kept me and mine for nine years?’ And with that Donald hit the hide another whack and out jumped another penny. Donald let the hide go, and who should walk up to Hudden’s door but him? ‘Good evening Hudden. May I borrow your scales please?’ Hudden stared and Hudden scratched his head, but he lent him the scales. When Donald was back home he pulled out all his gold coins and began weighing them. But Hudden had put a piece of butter in the bottom of the scales, and so the last coin stuck when he returned the scales to Hudden. If Hudden had stared before, he stared ten times more now, and no sooner was Donald’s back turned, than he was off as fast as he could pelt to Dudden’s. ‘Good evening Dudden, that vagabond, ill luck to him...’ ‘You mean Donald O’Leary?’ ‘And who else should I mean? He’s back here weighing sackfulls of gold!’ ‘How can you be sure?’ ‘Here are my scales that he borrowed, and here is the evidence, sticking to the bottom!’ Click here to read the rest of this story (208 more lines)
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