Storytelling Week 11 - Herald's Bad Year

There lived a man long ago named Herald. He was a nice and gentle man who didn’t have much going his way. Herald’s wife and children died in a car crash earlier in the year and he lost his job at the coalmines due to budget cuts. T0 state it plain in simple, it was a bad year for Herald, a very bad year.

On the brink of depression, Herald had sat on his old couch in his lonely home for two whole days without moving. Late one night as Herald sat miserably on his couch he heard a loud knock on his door. Startled, Herald jumped from his couch. He never received visitors, especially late at night. He walked to the door and looked through a peak hole to see who was at his house. He didn’t see anyone. He opened the door and still no one was there. Baffled, he shut the door and walked back to his couch. Just as he was about to fall back to his couch, there was a banging on the door again. Now a little irritated, Herald ran back to the door to find what he thought would be a mischievous child playing a mean prank. When he opened the door, there was no sign of anyone.

“Hey! Down here!” yelled a voice.

Herald looked down on his porch to find a man standing on his porch no larger than four inches tall. He thought he was dreaming. “What? Who are you?” questioned Herald.

“I’m your guardian leprechaun,” promised the mini human on his porch, and I’m here to give you some luck after your not so lucky events this past year.”

“I don’t need your luck, this isn’t real. Please, leave me alone!” said Herald.

“Herald, I’m here to help! What can I do for you? Maybe treat you to some fine food and drink? Buy you a new house? Perhaps a new family??” said the leprechaun.

Herald was reluctant to his mischievous little guy, but decided to play along with his game. “How about you get me my job back at the mine,” said Herald.

“Deal! But there’s a catch, when you gather your coal, I get to grab as much as I can hold in one trip to cash it in for my own profit.”

“Sounds good to me!” laughed Herald.

Sure enough, the next day the coal miners found a whole new cave of coal and all the miners got their jobs back. Herald ran to the mine to gather as much coal as possible. After almost 12 hours in the mine, he came up with hundreds of pounds of coal in his barrel.

“Wow! Good job Herald, now as you promised me, let me take all the coal I can carry,” said the leprechaun. He put one piece after another in his pocket. Soon enough there was no more coal in his barrel.

“You fooled me!” shouted Herald.

“Sorry, it’s what I do,” said the leprechaun as he started to walk away. As we walked away his pants split and he lost all the coal. Herald pushed him out of the way and took it all back. He cashed it in for profit and lived freely and worked hard for the rest of his days.

The mischievous leprechaun.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In the original story, the Farmer of Liddesdale, the farmer has a bad year until a man comes to help his plow his farm. The worker fools the farmer and takes his corn. The thief ends of loosing all of the corn when his barrel breaks and then he vanishes. I wanted to create a similar story, but with a couple of twists. As a Celtic story, I wanted to bring in a leprechaun and make it more interesting, too!

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Title: More Celtic Fairy Tales

Author: Joseph Jacobs

Illustrations: John D. Batten

Year: 1895