And the goat’s still carrying on and moaning away with the pain, when who comes by but a bumble-bee. And he goes ‘bvizzzzz’, hunting for flowers. And the bumble-bee was well acquainted with the fox, so he buzzes around two or three times, ‘bvizzzzzzzzz’, and lands beside the fox. The bumble-bee says, ‘What’s wrong, Fox?’
‘O-oh wheesht!’ the fox said, ‘In there – the devil – in that cave! My two babies are in there and I’ve got a wee bite here for them, a wee rabbit I managed to catch. I’ve been all night looking for it and I can’t go in! Listen,’ she said to the bumble-bee, ‘listen! The devil – it’s in there!’
And the goat’s lying, ‘O-o-oh-me-o-o-o-oh, I’m sore-I’m sore, I’ll never see daylight, I’ll never see the morning! Oh my poor legs and my poor feet, o-oh, curse upon that old man and curse upon his sons, curse upon his old woman – they’ve done this to me!’
The bumble-bee went in, flew round about, and he saw the goat lying on its side. He came back out. He said to the fox, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you. Just hang on, just sit there! I’ll no be long till I’m back.’
And away the bumble-bee goes, ‘hmmmmmmmmm’, two hundred miles an hour! Away he goes back to the hive, he lands in the hive and says to all his friends, ‘Look, you’ve been hanging about this hive all day! You’ve never done very much, now come with me, I’ve got a job for you! Come with me,’ said the bumble-bee, ‘I need you very quickly, sharpen your stings!’
And all the bumble-bees say, ‘Right, we’ll go with you!’
So they all landed back at the cave, about seventeen hundred bumble-bees, nearly two thousand! And they stopped. The fox was still sitting.
‘Now,’ says the bumble-bee, ‘in there! And where you hear a noise, moaning and groaning going on, sting to your hearts’ content! Sting hard and sting strong.’
So in go the bumble-bees, and one after the other they stung the goat. They stung the goat, every part of it. And the goat got such a fright – it went straight out of the cave – with the pain of the stings! And when it came out it forgot it was on a cliff, and went right out, into the sea and was drowned. It never was heard of again, never heard of!
And the fox went in to its wee babies, gave them the rabbit; and the bees went back to the hive. And that’s the end of the goat, and that’s the end of my story!
1 speak to – attend to
1 more the day – for the rest of the day
1 doubt – believe
The King and the Lamp
Now, I want to tell you a good story, and I hope you’re going to like it. This story’s been in our family for hundreds of years and is one my daddy used to tell me when I was wee. Because I was very fond of a story and I used to say to him, ‘Tell us some stories, Daddy!’ See, when we were carrying on and being wild Daddy used to say, ‘Come on and I’ll tell you a story!’ So you be quiet, listen. And some day when you’re big and have wee babies, you can tell them the same story that I’m telling you!
MANY many years ago there was an old tinkerman. And he wandered round the country making tin, because in these days everything that we needed was made from tin. And everything he used to make his tin he carried on his back. Some of the tools of his trade were shears for cutting the tin and a soldering bolt for soldering it, and he went from place to place mending pots and kettles, ladles, toasters and all these kinds of things. But unlike any other old traveller, he was only by himself. He met other travellers along the way and they wondered why, but this old man had never got married.
So, one summer he would be in one place, the next summer he would be in another place and the next summer he would be in another, in villages and towns. But there was one particular town he liked better than any other and he always used to come back, every year, because he got a lot of work there. And the funny thing was, something always drew him back – whether it was the town or whether it was because it was close to the king’s palace – nobody will ever know. But one day he landed back.
Not far from the town was the palace, it sat up on a great big hill, and in the palace lived the king and the queen. The old man carried his tent on his back as well as his working things, his tools for making tin. He was quite happy when he landed back near the village. It wasn’t very big but he loved this village. That night he sat up and he worked late, and he made kettles, pots, ladles, spoons, everything that he thought he could make.
And the next morning he packed them all on his back and walked into the village. He met a lot of people along the way, people that he had known before and had done some jobs for, he asked them, ‘Have you got anything to mend?’
And they said, ‘Yes, we’ve got things to mend but we just can’t afford it.’
‘Do you want to buy something then – can I sell you a pot, can I sell you a ladle, can I sell you a toaster?’ the tinkerman asked. But he met the same problem all the way, wherever he went. And the old man began to think, ‘Times must be really hard. Nobody seems to want my tinware any more.’
So at last he landed at the end of the village. An old woman lived there and he had known her for years. He said to her, ‘Are your kettles and pots needing mended, my old friend?’
She said, ‘Yes, old tinkerman, my kettles and pots need mending.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘let me do them for you!’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you can do them for me, but I’m sorry I can’t pay you.’
‘Oh! Why can you no pay me? I’m sure I don’t charge you very much for your kettles and pots,’ he said. ‘Pennies is all, I think.’1
She said, ‘I couldn’t pay you a penny. Old man, I couldn’t even pay you a penny.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘how about a new pan?’
She said, ‘My pans are burned through.’ (Because tin pans in these days didn’t last very long, they were only made of thin tin.) ‘We’d love to … but everyone here in the whole … Old man, you’ll no sell much here this time.’
He said, ‘It’s been a year since I’ve been here!’
‘But,’ she said, ‘last year was different from this year.’
‘But why?’ he said. ‘Why was last year so different?’
‘Well, our taxes have been raised since last year,’ she said. ‘Our king doesn’t give us much chance. And the same thing happens in all the country and all the villages around. The king has made new laws and raised all our taxes. The farmers can’t pay them, neither can the villagers pay their taxes to the landlords. And we’re so poor that if things don’t change, soon everybody’ll have to be like you, old traveller man. We’ll have to pack up and go on the road, because we can’t afford it.’
‘Well,’ said the old tinker, ‘bad business for you is bad business for me. Why doesn’t somebody do something about it?’
‘What can we do?’ she said. ‘We can’t go to the king and tell him so stop raising our taxes. He takes three-quarters of the corn from the farmers, three-quarters of everything they grow, if they don’t have any money to pay his taxes. Then the landlord who we work for does the same with us, and we’re so poor we’re hardly able to survive.’
‘Well,’ said the old traveller man, ‘there must be something done about this.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s nobody who can do anything about it. Because we don’t want to lose our homes, we don’t want to lose our village, we don’t want to lose our land – there’s nothing we can do.’
So the old traveller man had tried his best but he never made one single penny that day. He walked home very sad to his own little tent which he had camped outside the village. And he kept in his mind the thought that something had to be done, Nobody was going to do it, ‘So,’ he said, ‘it’s up to me. I’ll have to do it. Because it’s in my interest to do it in the first place.’
Then he lay all night in his bed, his little bed of straw on the ground in his tent. And he thought and he thought and he thought of a plan to try and help the villagers and the small farmers around the district who were
so good to him … and then he came up with the answer: the king must be made to understand, and he – a poor tinker, a traveller tinsmith, he was the very person – the one who was going to make the king understand about the predicament in the village!
The very next morning he got up bright and early, had a little breakfast – which was very meagre at this time – because he had made no money in the village. He packed his camp on his back, and his tools and made his way through the village to the king’s palace. But he didn’t go straight to the palace. On the way from the village there was a road that led up through a forest and then there was a large driveway that led up to a hill, on the hill was the king’s palace.
The story I’m telling you goes back nearly seven to eight hundred years. In these days there were lots of trees, hundreds of trees! The whole country was overrun with them. There was more wood than anything else, and the old tinker had little trouble finding a place to put up his tent and sticks for his fire. So where did he choose to put his tent? On the drive going to the king’s palace! It was nothing like the drives you have today – it was just a track right through the wood, beautiful and better made than any in the village. In the village they had no roads. But going to the king’s palace they had a road made especially for the king’s horses and carriages to pass along. The old tinkerman chose a piece of land as close to the palace, as close to the road as he could find, because that’s what he wanted to do!
Then he put up his tent and kindled his fire and started to work on his tinware. But he hadn’t been working very long, when who came along but the king’s caretaker. And he saw the old traveller man on the pathway.
‘Get out of here!’ he said, ‘Old man, who are you? And what are you doing here?’
The old traveller man said, ‘I’m doing nothing. I am at my work and at my job.’
‘But, you can’t, man,’ he said. ‘You can’t work and kindle a fire here – this is the king’s, the driveway to the king’s palace!’
‘Well,’ the old man said, ‘I don’t care, the driveway to the king’s palace or not. I’ve pitched my tent here and I’m making my tin here, I’ve got to make my livelihood.’
So the caretaker who was guarding the palace tried his best to get rid of the old man. But no way, the old man wouldn’t move. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll soon find somebody that’ll shift you.’ So up the driveway he goes and he sees some of the king’s guards. (Now, there were no police in the land in these days, and any soldiers that were available belonged to the king, and the king could command these soldiers to do anything that he wanted.) And the first person that the caretaker of the king’s land met was the captain of the king’s soldiers.
He said to the caretaker, who was out of breath by this time for he had run nearly a mile and a half, ‘Stop, man, what’s the trouble?’
He said, ‘The trouble’ (panting) ‘the trouble is there’s an old tinkerman on the driveway leading to the palace. And he’s got his fire kindled! He’s got his tent there, and he’s busy making tinware. And the king is due to go to the village in a very short time!’
‘But,’ said the king’s guard, ‘that’s no problem. We’ll soon square it up.’ He called to five of his troop. They jumped on their horses and rode down the drive. They arrived and the old tinkerman was busy – he had his fire going – working at his tinware. So the king’s officer jumped off his horse along with his soldiers, and commanded the old man to get moving away from the place because the king was due to pass down this way in a very little time.
But the old man said, ‘No. I too am a subject of the king. He’s my king as well as yours. I don’t own any land, I don’t have any land, but any land that belongs to the king belongs to me. Because he’s my king! And if he’s my king and I’m one of his subjects, I’m entitled to park my tent on his land and make my living as well as the next person.’ As he was an old man, the guards did not want to be rough or man-handle him, so they tried to argue with him.
They argued and tried to get rid of him when who should appear right at that very moment, but the king in his carriage! Ahead of the coach rode two or three couriers. When the king came to the six horses and his officers standing in the road, he ordered the driver to pull up. He opened the door of his coach, he said, ‘What is the hold-up here?’ And then he saw the fire, he saw the smoke and he saw the tent of the old man. ‘What’s going on here?’ said the king. They lowered the steps from the coach and the king stepped down. And he walked out onto the driveway.
The captain of the king’s officers bowed to the king and said, ‘Your Majesty, we don’t want you to see this.’
‘Why not?’ said the king. ‘Why shouldn’t I see? What-wha-what’s going on? What’s the trouble here? I am late as it is to make an appearance in the village.’
‘Well, Sir,’ he said, ‘I’ve a little explaining to do. It’s one of your subjects.’
‘One of my subjects?’ said the king. ‘What is the trouble then?’
He said, ‘Sir, it’s an old tinkerman.’
‘An old tinkerman? Well,’ he said, ‘I’m sure you are a troop of soldiers – I don’t think you need to be afraid of an old tinkerman.’
‘But, Sir,’ he said, ‘he’s got his fire kindled and he’s got his tent up and he’s making, he’s making his livelihood on your driveway!’
‘Oh well,’ said the king (chuckling), ‘that I would love to see! Move – step back!’ And the king walked forward.
Sure enough, there was the old tinkerman making things he would need to sell. But the thing he was specially making was a lamp – the most beautiful lamp – and he was just about finished with it, when the king stepped forward. And the king was amazed: he saw the common fire, he saw the common tent and he saw a piece of leather laid out, and all the working tools that the old traveller man had used. The king had never in his life ever seen anything like this! The king had seen lamps and seen kettles, but he had never had an idea where they came from.
So the king was mesmerised and so happy to see this that he told everyone, ‘Stay back for a moment, please, just stay back for a moment!’ And everyone had to obey the king. The captain of the guards couldn’t do anything. They stood back and held the horses.
And the king sat down on his hunkers beside the old man. He watched the old man. The old man paid no attention to the king, never letting on that he knew this was anybody other than a spectator, till he finished the lamp. Then he polished it.
And the old man looked up, he said, ‘Your Majesty, will you forgive me?’
The king said, ‘Certainly, my old man, I forgive you. But forgive you for what?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘last night I was in the village and things were not too good. I had a little money and I went into an ale tavern and I got kind of drunk.’ (The old man told him this story.) And he said, ‘Eh, with my possessions on my back I wandered here and I wandered there and I didn’t know where I was going to find a place to pitch my tent. The only place I could find was here. And I hope you will forgive me, my lord, my king. I didn’t know this was the road going to your palace.’
‘Oh, come-come, old man,’ he said, ‘why not? Why not? I’m enjoying this! What is it you’re making?’
He said, ‘Your Majesty, I am making a lamp. A special lamp.’ The king looked and it really was a special lamp. This old man was a really good tinsmith. He made this lamp and unto his mind he’d made it specially for the king. And no one could make a better lamp!
The king looked, ‘Is it finished?’
And the old man said, ‘Yes, my lord, it’s finished.’
‘Well, you know,’ he said, ‘my lamps inmy palace are not very good and I think that’s a better lamp than any I’ve ever seen. How much would you take for that lamp from me?’ said the king.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Your Majesty – I would never take anything from you! I would never take anything from you – I just want you not to be angry with me for staying on your ground!’
‘Oh no,’ said
the king, ‘I shall not be angry with you, I’m willing to pay you for your lamp. You need to be paid for your lamp! I get paid for everything that I do – why should you not be paid?’ And the king put his hand into his own pocket and took out four gold crowns and put them in the old man’s hand. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’m giving you these four gold crowns for your lamp because I want it for myself, for my own room. And I hope that it works. But to be fair on you, if it doesn’t work the way I want it to, you’re going to be in trouble! So that I can find you again, you stay where you are and don’t move! You’ve got my permission to stay here.’ The king took his lamp in his hand and he walked to his coach, and bade all his soldiers and everybody to go about their business.
The king told his footman, ‘Drive me on!’ He put his lamp in his coach with him. ‘That,’ he said, ‘I’m taking back,’ and he waved to the old man through the coach window.
The old tinkerman was quite happy. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘my task is half done.’ So the tinkerman stayed there all that day.
The king went about his business, visited the village and did all that he wanted to do, met all the people he wanted to see in the village. And the moment that he returned to his palace in his coach, the first thing he took out with him was his lamp.
Into the palace he went, met his queen who was happy to see him returned, and she said, ‘You’re home, my lord!’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘my darling, I’m home.’
‘But,’ she said, ‘what is that you have in your hand?’
‘Oh, this is something special,’ he said, ‘my dear. This is a lamp!’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I would love to see it working.’
The king said, ‘Well, it will be in our bedroom tonight. We will have the most beautiful light that anybody ever had!’ Now, the lamps in these days weren’t very popular because you couldn’t afford lamps, not the way the old tinker could make them. You had to be very rich to be able to buy a good lamp. So late that afternoon the king called for the headman in the castle and told him to fill his lamp and have it ready, that he and his queen would have their lamp while they had their evening meal.
The King and the Lamp Page 9