by Bob Hartman
The king was stuck. He could not prove where the middle of the earth was any more than the gardener could. So he moved on to the final question.
‘Here is one you will never get!’ the king chuckled. ‘Tell me – what am I thinking?’
‘Oh, that’s easy!’ the gardener chuckled back. ‘You think that I am the priest!’
‘Of course I do,’ the king replied.
‘Ah, but I am not!’ said the gardener, throwing off the big, black robe. ‘But you thought I was. And so I knew exactly what you were thinking!’
The king was surprised for a second.
And then angry for another.
But when he realized how clever this little gardener had been, he smiled, and then, for the first time in a long time, he laughed. And finally he called for his treasurer.
‘This man deserves his weight in gold!’ the king announced. ‘And the priest deserves the same, for he has taught me a lesson about worry.’
So the priest was saved from the dungeon.
The gardener became a wealthy man.
The king tried to worry a little less often.
And they all lived happily ever after.
Olle and the Troll
Olle had never seen a troll. He was only five years old.
‘Trolls are ugly!’ said his mother. ‘They have turnip noses and berry-bush eyebrows.’
‘Trolls are scary!’ said his father. ‘Their mouths run right from ear to ear and their left hand is always a wolf’s paw.’
‘Trolls are dangerous!’ said his parents together. ‘The Troll of the Big Mountain stuffed our best goats in his big sack and carried them away. And if you are not careful, he will do the same to you!’
Olle had never seen a troll. But if he ever did see one, he knew exactly what he would do. He had a little wooden shield. And two boards hammered together to make a sword.
‘I’ll chop him to bits!’ Olle boasted to his parents. ‘I’ll take care of that Troll if he comes round here again.’
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ his father warned him. ‘If that Troll comes to the door, you’ll keep it locked tight and call for me. And that Troll will leave you alone.’
Olle had never seen a troll. But the Troll of the Big Mountain had seen him. And he decided, one day, to stuff Olle in his sack and carry him away. So he waited for Olle’s parents to start their day’s work, then he tramped down the Big Mountain to Olle’s house.
Along the way, he disguised himself. He pulled a hood over his ugly head and wrapped a bandage around his wolf-paw hand. He stooped and walked with a limp and looked for all the world like a withered old man.
The Troll banged on Olle’s door, and Olle looked nervously out of the window. Olle had never seen a troll. And this visitor looked nothing like the horrible creature his parents had described.
‘Who is it?’ he called.
‘Just an old man,’ lied the Troll, in a feeble little voice. ‘I’ve lost a coin on your step. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Could you come and help me find it?’
‘Oh no,’ said Olle. ‘My parents told me to stay inside, with the door locked. There is an evil, ugly troll about who likes to carry off little boys.’
‘Do I look like an evil, ugly troll?’ the Troll asked.
‘Well… no,’ Olle admitted. ‘But if you were, I’d chop you in pieces with my sword. See!’ And Olle held his little weapon to the window.
‘It’s hard to see from out here,’ the Troll said. ‘Perhaps if you were to let me come inside…’
Olle didn’t know what to do. But the old man looked harmless enough. So he opened the door.
The Troll examined the sword carefully, chuckling to himself and waiting for the right moment to grab the boy.
‘The Troll stole our goats,’ Olle explained. ‘I didn’t have my sword then, but if I had…’
‘Goats?’ interrupted the Troll. ‘Did you say goats? Why, just this morning, I saw a whole herd of goats, up on the Big Mountain.’
‘But that’s where the Troll lives!’ Olle exclaimed.
‘I could take you there,’ said the Troll, slyly. ‘We could bring your goats back!’
‘Yes, please!’ Olle said. ‘My parents will be so surprised!’
‘Indeed they will,’ the Troll grinned. And off they went – but not before Olle had stuck his sword in his belt and shoved a crusty chunk of bread into his pocket.
Olle had never seen a troll (even though there was now one walking beside him!). So, of course, he didn’t know anything about troll secrets. He’d never have guessed that if a troll accepts a gift from someone, he can never do that someone any harm.
It was a long walk to the Big Mountain. And halfway there Olle got hungry. So he sat down on the grass, plucked the chunk of bread out of his pocket and tore off a piece. And, being a polite little boy, he offered a piece to the Troll.
‘No. No, thank you,’ said the Troll, firmly (for he knew the troll secrets better than anyone). And, besides, the time had come to stuff Olle into his sack.
This, of course, had to be done in just the right way. There was no point, the Troll thought, in making off with a little boy if one could not see him struggle and scream and squirm!
And so the Troll grinned a wicked grin and said, ‘Tell me, Olle, what would you do if I were not an old man at all, but that ugly, evil Troll?’
Olle looked at the Troll and smiled. ‘That’s silly,’ he said. ‘You’re the nicest man I’ve ever met!’
Well, the Troll was so pleased with his evil joke, that he threw back his head, opened his ugly, wide mouth and roared with laughter.
And he would have laughed and laughed and laughed, if Olle had not seen this as the perfect opportunity to share what was left of his bread. He tossed a piece – a little round ball of a piece – right into the Troll’s open mouth. And, though the Troll gagged and choked and coughed, in the end there was nothing he could do but swallow the bread. And that meant, of course, that he could no longer do Olle any harm!
In fact, he did just the opposite. He led Olle to the lost goats, and watched sadly as the little boy shepherded them down the hill and out of sight.
There was a great celebration when Olle and the goats returned home. His parents were surprised. Their friends were amazed. But Olle was just a little disappointed.
‘I’ve been all the way to the Big Mountain and back,’ he complained. ‘And I still haven’t seen a troll!’
The Steel Man
One by one, the steel-working men huffed and puffed and struggled to lift the long steel beams. It was a contest – a contest that took place once a year in the smoky shadow of the steel mill – to prove who was the strongest man in the steel-making valley.
But as the light of the setting sun mingled with the blast-furnace soot and fire, not a man among them had yet been able to lift the heaviest beam of all.
Suddenly they heard something – Boom! Boom! Boom! Then they felt the earth shake. And finally, they saw him, tramping through the twilight, hammering the ground with his steel-tipped shoes – a giant of a man, nine feet tall at least, with hands like shovels and a head full of burnt brown hair!
He lumbered through the crowd, right up to the heaviest steel beam. Then he wrapped one hairy fist around it – and swung it up over his head!
The crowd gasped. They had never seen anyone so strong. But the big man just tilted back his head and laughed – a rumbling, tumbling sound, like steel makes as it bubbles and boils in the furnace.
‘Let me introduce myself,’ he roared. ‘My father was the sun, hotter than any furnace. My mother was Mother Earth herself. And I was born in the belly of an ore-bearing mountain. For I am a man who is made of steel! And my name is Joe Magarac.’
Now it was the crowd’s turn to laugh. For in their language, the word ‘magarac’ meant ‘donkey’!
‘Laugh all you want,’ the big man chuckled. ‘Because all I want to do is eat like a donkey and work like a donkey!’
The steel-working men laughed again, and clapped and cheered. Then they gathered round Joe and introduced themselves.
But high in the steel mill, in the fancy room where the bosses worked, there was another man – the Big Boss, the man who owned the steel mill. His face was pressed to the window and, through the grime and the smoke, he could see what was going on in the yard below.
‘He’s a strong man.’ The Big Boss smiled. ‘So I will hire him to work for me. Then maybe I won’t need to hire so many other men.’
Joe started every day in the same way. He gobbled up a bucket of coal, and washed it down with a bowl of steaming, hot steel soup. Then he tramped over to the mill, picking his teeth with a hard, cold chisel.
He grabbed a pile of old railroad tracks with one arm, and ten tons of iron ore with the other. Then he carried them over to Furnace Number Nine and dumped them in. And finally he shovelled coal underneath and set the whole thing burning with a finger-snap spark.
The stuff inside the furnace started to melt. It turned red and orange and yellow and white hot. But that heat didn’t bother Joe. No, he stuck his arm in there and stirred it around. ‘Kind of tickles,’ he laughed.
And then, as that stuff cooled down, thick and gooey, Joe grabbed a handful in his fist and squeezed it tight. And out between his fingers oozed four perfect steel beams!
Day by day, week by week, month by month, those beams piled up. Until the warehouses were full. And the steel yard. And, at last, the mill itself.
And that’s when the Big Boss came down from his fancy room.
‘Boys!’ he hollered. ‘I got some bad news for you. Joe Magarac, here, has made so much steel, we’re not gonna need any more for a while. So I want you to go home. I’ll call you if I want you to work again.’
The steel-working men walked slowly home. No work meant no money. And that meant no food on the table or shoes on their children’s feet.
They turned and looked back at the mill. No furnace firelight dancing against the window-panes. No clouds billowing black out of the smokestacks. Nothing but stillness and sadness and rust.
And inside the mill there was only Joe, sitting in Furnace Number Nine, a little steel tear running down his big steel cheek.
‘This is my fault,’ he whispered to the dirty walls. ‘I ate like a donkey and worked like a donkey, and now my friends have no jobs. I must do something to help them.’
The clocks in the houses of the steel-working men ticked away hours and days and weeks and months. Their families were hungry. Their hopes were fading. And then, one night, just as the clock struck nine, they saw it, down in the valley – a furnace burning in the mill!
They rushed out of their houses and down the crooked hillside streets. They burst into the mill itself. And that’s when they heard it – the very same sound they’d heard on the night that Joe came tramping through the twilight – the rumbling, tumbling sound that steel makes as it bubbles and boils in the furnace.
They followed that sound, and it led them to Furnace Number Nine. And there, in the furnace, was the head of Joe Magarac, floating on a white-hot pool of steel.
‘Joe! Get out of there!’ they shouted.
But Joe just laughed. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘I was the reason you lost your jobs. And now I’m gonna fix that. When I am all melted down, I want you to pour me out into steel beams, ‘cause my steel is the strongest steel there is. Then I want you to tear down this old mill and use my beams to make a new one. A bigger one. One that will make jobs for you and your children for years to come!’
The big man said, ‘Goodbye!’ and then the head of Joe Magarac disappeared into the boiling steel and he was never seen again.
The men did what Joe told them, and the next year there was another strong man contest in the new steel yard. And the prize? It was the privilege of tending the fires in Furnace Number Nine – the furnace where Joe Magarac had sacrificed himself for everyone in the steel-making valley.
The Crafty Farmer
Farmer Yasohachi pasted the bright sign on the side of the village hall:
SUNDAY MORNING – COME AND SEE!
FARMER YASOHACHI CLIMBS TO HEAVEN!
People passed by and pointed. Some smiled. Many more laughed. But one person was not happy at all, for he was Yasohachi’s master.
‘Farmer Yasohachi!’ shouted the master. ‘What are you thinking of? All the other farmers have ploughed their fields. They are ready for planting. But your field lies hard and lumpy while you waste your time with silly games!’
‘Oh, they are not silly, not silly at all!’ grinned Farmer Yasohachi. ‘Come on Sunday and see.’
Sunday morning arrived, and a great crowd gathered in one corner of Yasohachi’s field. Most of the people from the village were there, including Farmer Yasohachi’s master.
Farmer Yasohachi set up a tall bamboo pole in the middle of the crowd. Then he bowed and smiled and started to climb up the pole.
He clambered a quarter of the way.
He clambered a third of the way.
He clambered half the way!
And then the pole began to teeter and totter, to bend and sway, until, at last, both Yasohachi and the pole fell to the ground with a crash!
Someone moaned. Someone else booed. But Yasohachi was not flustered, not at all. He dusted himself off, picked up the pole, and marched to another corner of the field.
This time, he planted the pole much deeper. He bowed once more and, as the crowd whispered and watched and shuffled their feet, he began to climb again.
A quarter of the way.
A third of the way.
Half the way.
Two thirds of the way!
But, once again, the pole began to sway. Yasohachi tried to keep his balance, but it was no use, and he fell to the ground with a crash!
‘Still not deep enough,’ he muttered to the crowd. And, even though some of them were muttering by this time too, they followed him to yet another corner of his field.
Again Yasohachi planted the pole. Again Yasohachi bowed. Again Yasohachi started to climb. But this attempt was no better, so again Yasohachi fell to the ground with a crash!
‘No. Please!’ he called to the crowd, as they began to walk away. ‘One more chance, I beg you!’
The crowd sighed and grumbled, but, one by one, they slowly followed Yasohachi to the last corner of his field.
They huddled round and stamped their feet impatiently, and as soon as the pole again began to topple, they walked angrily away.
Yasohachi picked himself up and dusted off his dirty clothes. He was grinning from ear to ear!
‘What are you smiling about, you silly man?’ asked Yasohachi’s master. ‘You could have been ploughing your field this morning, but instead you made a fool of yourself in front of the whole village!’
‘Fool?’ asked Yasohachi. ‘I don’t think so. Take a good look at my field.’
Yasohachi’s master looked, shook his head in amazement, and looked again.
Where there had once been nothing but hard, unploughed clumps of dirt there was now a field, soft and flat and ready for planting – trampled smooth by the feet of the crowd that had come to stare at Farmer Yasohachi!
Tiger Tries to Cheat
‘Help me!’ cried Tiger. ‘Help me, somebody, please!’
Tiger was trapped. During the night, an earthquake had sent a huge boulder rolling across the front of his dark cave door. And now he couldn’t get out.
‘Help me! Help me, please!’ he cried again.
And that’s when Rabbit hopped by.
‘Is that you, Tiger?’ Rabbit asked.
‘Of course it’s me,’ whined Tiger. ‘Push the stone away and let me out!’
Rabbit pushed and pushed, but he could not move the heavy stone. No, not one bit. So he scurried off to find some help.
He found Elephant. And Buffalo. And Crocodile. And, along with Rabbit, they pushed and pushed and pushed, until they pushed that stone away.
‘Wait just a minute!’ Rabbit shouted to the others. ‘I helped Tiger out of his cave, and now he wants to eat me. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t think this is fair!’
Elephant and Buffalo and Crocodile glanced at one another. Then they looked at Tiger.
‘No,’ they said nervously, at last. ‘Not fair – not fair at all.’
‘But I’ve got him!’ complained Tiger. ‘I’ve finally got him! After all these years!’
‘Look,’ said Rabbit to them all. ‘Everyone knows that Tortoise is the wisest and the fairest creature in the jungle. Let’s share our little problem with him.’
Elephant and Buffalo and Crocodile nodded. They liked this plan.
So Tiger sighed and nodded, too. ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘We’ll talk to Tortoise.’
So Tortoise was sent for. But as he arrived, Tiger bent down and whispered into Tortoise’s ear. ‘This had better go my way,’ he growled. ‘It’s been some time since I’ve had a nice bowl of tortoise soup!’
Tortoise looked at Tiger and cleared his throat. He did not like threats. No, not one bit.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What is your problem?’
Both Tiger and Rabbit began to explain at the same time, so Tortoise stopped them.
‘Wait, it’s confusing if you both speak at once. Why not show me?’ he said. ‘Show me what happened.’
‘I was inside the cave,’ Tiger explained. ‘Then into the cave you go,’ ordered Tortoise.
‘And the big boulder,’ explained Rabbit, ‘was in front of the cave door.’
‘Then let’s have it back there again,’ Tortoise commanded.
So Rabbit and his friends pushed the boulder back – and trapped Tiger in the cave!
‘And then what happened?’ asked Tortoise.
‘Well, I ran to get help,’ said Rabbit. ‘But once we had freed Tiger he grabbed me and tried to eat me.’