The bent penny

ONCE UPON A TIME there lived a man and woman who were as poor as the animals of the forest. They had fifteen children and there was never quite enought food to go around even though they spent all their time planting and tending and reaping and searching for food.


One day an old woman came along to the house where they lived and saw how poor they were for there was no glass in the windows and no paint on the walls. The old woman knocked on the rickety old door and the mother answered.

"You need never be hungry again," said the old woman. The mother looked at her.

"How can that be?" she said, "With fifteen mouths to feed and no money to buy the food to feed them."

"No money?" asked the old woman, "with a single penny, I could buy you enough to feed your family, so you will never be hungry again."

The mother had eaten nothing but thin gruel for three days and three nights. She said, "I think I have a penny." She had hidden it away for her youngest child's birthday. She was so hungry, they all were, so she slipped away and when she came back, she was holding a rusty, bent old penny.

The old woman took it from her and breathed onto it three times. Her breath smelled like rotting meat, but it made the penny glow like it had been dropped in the smith's furnace. "Now," said the old woman, "to make the charm I need a promise." Hunger twisted at the mother's guts and she nodded.

"Anything," she said.

"You must promise me your next born child," the old woman said. The woman laughed. She was too old to have another child anyway.

"I promise," she said.

With that, the old woman turned her back and tossed the coin into the scrubby vegetable patch. The mother screamed and dropped to her knees in the soil, but the coin was gone as though the earth had swallowed it up. All there was to see were a few stringy carrot tops and a mouldy turnip.

The mother wept. When the father came home, he had a thin rabbit for the cooking pot. "Tonight," he said proudly, "we will eat like kings." He danced around the kitchen with the rabbit as if he really believed that it was a nice fat pig. "And then tomorrow, I shall walk to town and buy my youngest son a penny cake for his birthday." He saw the tears pouring down his wife's cheeks. "Why do you weep so?"

She thought that she might tell him that she was weeping for joy at such a bounty, but the truth took command of her tongue. She told her husband of the old woman and the coin. The father was furious. He stormed out into the garden to find the coin himself and fell flat on his bottom in disbelief.

The vegetable patch, which had for years grown more stones than carrots was bursting with ripe and healthy vegetables. Enormous turnips, potatoes the size of full-grown-man's fist, carrots glowing orange beneath bushy green tops. Beetroots, beans, strawberries, fat cabbages and brainy cauliflowers. The children came rushing to see what the fuss was about and found their father tugging at a giant pumpkin. They ran over to help him pull and when it finally came free with a plump heave of earth they all tumbled over.

"My lord," said the father, "We will never go hungry again."

For many months they lived like kings in their little cottage in the forest. The vegetable patch sprung new vegetables every day and every morning a plump rabbit was caught in one of the father's snares. At weekends they would sometimes catch a small pig, or a fat hen for the cook pot. They sold a little in the town at market and bought new windows for the cottage and shoes for all the children.

They had all but forgotten the promise when the mother found that she was pregnant again. The whole family was overjoyed. Months of happiness passed and the baby was born, big and healthy and all agreed that so beautiful a baby had never been born.

Months passed into years and still the vegetable patch produced its magical bounty. Eleanor, for that was the child's name grew into a beautiful young girl, who was always well mannered and happy and care free and nice to old people even if they were grumpy.

For her seventh birthday, her parents had produced a feast and all the people from round about were invited. It was a party, the like of which only kings had every seen. During the feast, however, when the father and mother were revelling in their lot, an old woman wandered into the clearing. At first, no one but the mother noticed her. The old woman was older and more frail, but she had the look of thunder in her eyes.

Then Eleanor spotted her and rushed over with a plate of raspberry tart. The old woman took it from her and slipped a gentle hand over her shoulder. The mother watched in horror.

"Begone," she cried, but the old woman didn't move. She stood with her arm around the child's shoulders.

"I have come to collect on my promise," she said.

"What is this?" asked the father.

"It is nothing," said the mother. "Begone old woman, or we shall chase you from this place."

"Could it be that you are breaking a promise?" asked the old woman, "One that has been so well paid."

"You cannot have her," said the mother.

"Old woman," said the father, "is it to you that we owe our happiness? Come, please, sit, eat with us. Whatever you want we shall give to you."

"You owe me no happiness," said the old woman, "You owe nothing but the child." The father stormed to his feet and many around the table stood too.

"How dare you," he shouted, "You cannot have her, begone, before we chase you from this place."

"Then I shall go," said the old woman and with that she reached into the child's mouth and pulled out the bent old penny. "A penny for seven years of happiness and plenty does not seem too great a price." she said, then she turned and just like that she was gone.

The following morning, the mother rushed to the garden convinced it would be gone, but just as it had been every day for seven years, the garden bulged with food. She laughed at the thought of that foolish old woman and picked some potatoes, onions and carrots to go with the rabbit that her husband would soon bring home.

At lunch the seventeen sat down to eat, but Eleanor, the youngest, looked a little pale.

"All the excitement has worn her out," said her father, although he knew that Eleanor had always thrived on excitement. The family ate, but Eleanor simply pushed the food around her plate. When everyone had finished, Eleanor was so ill that she had to be carried  up to her bed. Her face looked pinched and grey. "It's all the excitement," her mother said.

By dinnertime she felt a little better and sat with them at the table, but again, before the meal was finished she had fainted clean away. Her father carried her to bed and laid her down.

The next day she didn't get up at all, and as the rest ate breakfast she lay in bed all alone. And so it went. By the end of the week, the child was nothing but skin and bones. Even her beautiful hair had fallen out.

Now it happened that there was a festival at that time of year, when the people of the forest fasted for forty days and nights. On the first day of the fast, Eleanor took a little soup. On the second day she was strong enough to sit up and read. After forty days, although the others were hungry, Eleanor was as good as new. But as soon as the fasting was over she fell ill again.

The father was not a foolish man. He remembered well how it was to be hungry, but as he watched his beautiful daughter waste away, he knew what it was he had to do.

"We must not take food from the garden," he said, "for as long as we do, Eleanor will stay sick." And they never did again.

The vegetable patch sits there still behind the house. It is still full to overflowing with good things to eat, but there is no glass in the windows of the house and the children have no shoes for the winter. And, oh, are they hungry now.