In which we share the first story: a tricksy ghosty fun little tale

This story was still stuck in my brain when I was preparing to do my weekly online-storytelling-with-a-puppet video for the middle school special needs class.  I had planned to tell them a completely different story with a completely different puppet...and yet, the Hedley Kow* would not get out of my brain long enough to give the completely different story some breathing room.

Sometimes, I win an argument about a story with my brain, but not very often.  I grabbed Jacqueline Lapin to help me tell the story, and here's the video.  

*please note that the word kow in this story is counter-intuitively pronounced "koo."  It's a Northumbrian word that apparently means "a tricksy ghosty shape-shifting spirit".  

 

The Hedley Kow (England)

THERE was once an old woman, who earned a poor living by fetching and carrying for the farmers' wives round about the village of Hedley where she lived. It wasn't much she earned by it; but with a bowl of soup at one house, and a cup of tea at another, she made shift to get on somehow and always looked as cheerful as if she hadn't a want in the world.

One winter afternoon as she was walking home, she came upon a big black pot lying at the side of the road.

It was a bigger and finer pot than she had ever seen, and she looked all around for the person who had lost it.  But she could see no one. 

“Maybe it has a hole in it,” she said, “and that’s why it’s been left behind.  But even so, I could plant flowers in, and wouldn’t that be a pretty sight in my dooryard?  And she lifted the lid to look inside. 

To her surprise, the pot was full of gold coins.  For a while she could do nothing but walk round and round her treasure, wondering at her good luck, and saying to herself about every two minutes, 'Well, I do be feeling rich and grand.  How lucky I am!'

But then she thought, “How can I get it home?” for it was heavier than she was, herself.  She couldn’t see a better way, and so she tied one end of her shawl to the pot, and dragged it behind her on the road.  This was long and slow, but the woman kept herself cheerful by thinking of the things she might do with the treasure.

“I could buy a big house and live like the Queen herself, and just sit by the fire with my tea,” she said. 

 And by this time being already rather tired with dragging such a heavy weight after her, she stopped to rest for a minute, turning to make sure that the treasure was safe.

But when she looked at it, it wasn't a pot of gold at all, but a great lump of shining silver!

She stared at it, and rubbed her eyes and stared at it again; but she couldn't make it look like anything but a great lump of silver. “I'd have sworn it was a pot of gold,' she said at last, 'but I must have been dreaming.  But this is a change for the better; it'll be far less trouble to look after, and none so easy stolen; pieces of gold would be too hard to tend. I'm well quit of them; and with my silver lump I'm as rich as rich.  How lucky I am!”

 She set off homewards again, cheerfully planning all the grand things she was going to do with her great lump of silver. It wasn't very long, however, before she got tired again and stopped once more to rest for a minute or two.

Again she turned to look at her treasure, and as soon as she set eyes on it she cried out in astonishment.

'Oh, my!' said she; 'now it's a lump o' iron! Well, this is better still.  I can sell a lump of iron as easy as anything, and get a lot o' penny pieces for it.   Iron is so much better than gold and silver, for I’d have kept me from sleeping at nights thinking the neighbors might rob me.  How lucky I am!”

And on she trotted again chuckling to herself on her good luck, till presently she glanced over her shoulder, and to her surprise, the lump of iron had changed again.  “And now it’s a great huge rock!” 

“Well, how could it have known that I was just wanting a great huge rock to hold my door open? Ay, if that isn't a good change! How lucky I am!”

All in a hurry now, to see how the stone would look in its corner by her door, she trotted off down the hill, and stopped at the foot, beside her own little gate.

When she had unlatched it, she turned to unfasten her shawl from the rock which had been a pot of gold and a lump of silver and then a lump of iron, but now it seemed to still be a great huge rock.

There was a tiny bit of light still, and she could see the stone quite plainly as she bent to untie the shawl end; when, all of a sudden, it seemed to give a jump and a squeal, and grew in a moment as big as a great horse; then it threw down four lanky legs, and shook out two long ears, flourished a tail, and went off kicking its feet into the air and laughing.

The old woman stared after it, till it was fairly out of sight.

'Well!' she said at last, 'I must be the luckiest body hereabouts! Fancy me seeing the Hedley Kow all to myself!"

And she went into her cottage, and sat down by the fire to think over her good luck.