A story I'll tell of a fat greedy king,
Who lived in a city remote.
It lay on a river, up which folk would bring
All manner of trade goods by boat.

He had three ships built, and sent them away,
The finest of treasure to seek;
Then sat back and fretted for many a day,
And fidgeted many a week.

At last arrived one laden vessel and docked;
The king hurried down, with his court,
And pushed through the crowd which at landing stage flocked,
To see what the captain had brought.

The captain produced silks and satins and jade,
And trinkets of ivory grand;
"That was," said the king, "a magnificent trade,
I'll give you a house and much land."

The king now in raiment fine, had himself dressed,
But soon again restless he grew,
And as the time passed he grew once more distressed,
With ships two and three overdue.

He need not have worried, for ship number two,
Came sailing, salt-stained, through the foam,
And once more crowds gathered to welcome the crew
And celebrate safe return home.

The king received silver, the king received gold,
The king received diamonds that shine;
The monarch with gratitude, over was bowled,
And gave captain 2 mansion fine.

The king had him made a great gem-studded crown,
And silver-set sceptre and orb,
But wanting still more, soon his spirits drooped down,
In misery soon he's absorbed.

Now this is the point where I usually diverge
From topic, and ramble away,
But this time, dear reader, I'm hearing you urge
Me: "Ogg, on things relevant stay."

So I won't tell you tales of the sheep and the goats,
In fields, by the light of the moon.
We'll just skip three years, till the long-missing boat's
At last reached the royal pontoon.

This time the king sits, in his hall, on his throne,
Weighed down by his robes and regalia,
So to the king's room captain 3 is now shone,
With pomp and much paraphernalia.

"This voyage, your majesty, wasn't no joke,"
Says he, in precise intonation,
"For down in the south seas, the compass gets broke,
Resulting in course dislocation."

"We haven't a crumb or a grain left to eat,
The water casks all is bone dry,
But when, full of doom, we all thinks ourselves beat,
On starboard bow land we espy.

"And here is what saved our poor lives then, m'lud,
It's value is far above gold."
He handed the monarch a humble brown spud,
"There's tons, sire, out there in the hold."

"I'll mash," roared the king, "your intestines to cream,
And feed to the jackals your liver,
But first take that shipload of spuds down the stream
And dump every one in the river."

The holds, which with 'taters were totally crammed
Were emptied in mud sedimentary.
Result: that fair stream was then totally dammed,
The consequence quite elementary...

All sea-trade was stopped, and the produce, home-grown,
Was lost in the fields, 'neath the flood
By pent river water; the crowds start to moan,
And shout for the greedy king's blood.

And soon in the river the monarch is thrown,
The populace, abject with fear,
Are starving, reduced now to mere skin and bone...
But wait, for a miracle's near.

As stated,with food supplies now quite run out,
The folk are morose and dejected,
But nature's at work, the spuds start to sprout,
And soon a great harvest's collected.

The moral, I'm sure, is of little surprise:
The spud is the salt of the earth,
And nature beneficent's given them eyes,
To see you through times of great dearth.

The sequence below from an on-line RPG is what inspired the above.

Absolom Gruntfuttock, with his companions, Deliah, (a formidable lady,) Dersu, (a man-of-the-forest, with strange skills with herbal medicine,) and Marilee, (with whom Absolom is besotted,) are returning from a limestone gathering expedition. To liven up the long journey, he relates the following:





1301-2: You say: "Dersu once said that Galthran, (was that his name?) liked treasure too much. That reminded me of a story. It's very long so I'll tell it a bit at a time... no Marilee, that's not because I'm making it up as I go along I know it's true because that old woman I met near Hilloi heard it from a traveller who'd been told it by a woman who was once married to the second mate of one of the ships involved. So here's the first part..."


1301-2: You say: "Once upon a time there lived a king... well, he wasn't really a king, more a village leader, like
Brandon in Brunoi Hills West, except this man was even greedier and a lot more stupid. The village was quite like BHW too: they had limestone and wheat, but they also had wood. There were no roads leading to this place, but there was a river which led to the sea. So this king had three ships built, and he filled them with limestone, and told the captains to bring back the most valuable treasure they could find. So the three ships set off, and the king impatiently waited for them to come back... but he had to wait a long time... and so will you, at least until tomorrow..."

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more folk tales....

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Sunday, October 02, 2005