There was once a parson who was such a bully that
whenever he met anyone driving on the king’s
highway, he called out, ever so far off—“Out
of the way! Out of the way! Here comes the
parson!”
One day when he was driving along and behaving so,
he met the king. “Out of the way!
Out of the way!” he bawled a long way off.
But the king drove on and held his own; so it was
the parson who had to turn his horse aside that time,
and when the king came up beside him, he said, “To-morrow
you shall come to me at the palace, and if you can’t
answer three questions which I shall ask you, you
shall lose your office for your pride’s sake.”
This was something quite different from what the parson
was wont to hear. He could bawl and bully, shout
and scold. All that he could do, but question
and answer were not in his line. So he set off
to the clerk, who was said to be worth more than the
parson, and told him he had no mind to go to the king.
“For one fool can ask more than ten wise men
can answer;” and the end was, he got the clerk
to go in his place.
Yes, the clerk set off and came to the palace in the
parson’s clothes. There the king met him
out on the porch with crown and sceptre, and he was
so grand he fairly glittered and gleamed. “Well,
are you there?” said the king.
“Tell me first,” said the king, “how
far the east is from the west?”
“Just a day’s journey,” said the
clerk.
“How is that?” asked the king.
“Don’t you know,” said the clerk,
“that the sun rises in the east and sets in
the west, and he does it just nicely in a day?”
“Very well!” said the king, “but
tell me now what you think I am worth, as you see
me stand here?”
“Well,” said the clerk, “our Lord
was valued at thirty pieces of silver, so I don’t
think I can set your price higher than twenty-nine.”
“All very fine!” said the king, “but,
as you are so wise, perhaps you can tell me what I
am thinking about now?”
“Oh!” said the clerk, “you are thinking
it’s the parson who stands before you, but there’s
where you are mistaken, for I am the clerk.”
“Be off home with you,” said the king,
“and be you parson, and let him be clerk.”
And so it was.
Once on a time there was a man who lived far, far
away in the wood. He had many, many goats and
sheep, but never a one could he keep because of Greylegs,
the wolf.
At last he said, “I’ll soon trap Greyboots,”
and so he set to work to dig a pitfall. When
he had dug it deep enough, he put a pole down in the
midst of the pit, and on the top of the pole he set
a board, and on the board he put a little dog.
Over the pit itself he spread boughs and branches
and leaves, and other rubbish, and a-top of all he
strewed snow, so that Greylegs might not see that
there was a pit underneath.
