Peregrin's Fables - The Stone Pie
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Once apon a time there was a great summer famine in a certain land. One village was struck particularly hard, and there was very little food left. What food there was, was hidden away by its owners.
To this village there came a tall peddlar, dressed in a long fur coat. He realised nobody had any food or money; and he lit a fire in the village centre, and set an enormous pan on top of it.
A boy asked him what he was doing. The peddlar answered, in a loud voice, "I'm making a Pie for all the village, with my magic stone. A Stone Pie!"
The villagers crowded round, hopeful in the promise of food. The peddlar elaborately took a round grey stone from his coat, and set it in the pan. He started cooking it. Then he said, "I love Stone Pie. But once, I had Stone Pie with pastry on it. That was fantastic!"
One of the housewives shyly presented ten kilograms of pastry that she happened to have hidden away in her robe. The peddlar added it to the pie.
"Stone Pie with pastry. Lovely! But Stone Pie with pastry and onions, that would be capital" the peddlar said.
Another villager hurried away and came back with some onions he had hidden. And so it went on. The peddlar asked for, and got, a side of beef, some peppers, salt, mustard, milk, cabbage, and many other ingredients. Finally he announced it was cooked.
The chief of the village came up to be the first to try this magic pie. The peddlar cut him a generous slice and presented it.
The chief bit into it, and broke his tooth on the stone. He sentenced the peddlar to death; he was hung, drawn and quartered that very afternoon. They threw the pie in the river bed, and soon all died of starvation.
The moral of the story: Never trust people who wear fur coats in the summer.Next fable - The True Legend of Little Red Riding Hood
