Kibworth Crosses and Golden Eggs

Sit down, son. I want you to learn something about your family and your father. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this story. I kind of wanted to keep it a secret. But I watched you today going about your business, and frankly, I didn’t like what I saw. Now, now. Yes, I know. But. Here’s the key: You’re not a “de Wystan,” but I am your father. You’re not a “de Wystan” because I’m not one either. I wasn’t born Jean de Wystan. I was born simple Jack Nash. I grew up in a shack. We had nothing, and we were hungry most days. Until I got some beans. Magic beans.

Yes, I’m that Jack.

No, the story is not a legend. It’s true. Mostly.

Yes, the giant’s name was Blunderbore. He smelt of old, oily skin and salt.

No, the goose is dead now, and it was the only one of its kind. Well, the only one that I know about. I’m glad you mentioned the goose. It’s what I want to talk to you about. Look around this room. Think of the nice clothes you have, your stallion, that lovely saddle … and that you can read. Look out the window and see our fields. Everything I have comes from two things: 1) that goose and its wonderful eggs, and 2) my ability to form useful friendships and make them last.

The first part was just fortuitous good luck, but the second part is what I want you to understand.

Blunderbore was dead. His body was rotting away where it smashed into the forest near my mother’s hut.

I had a goose that laid golden eggs. You’d think it would make me rich. Well, it did eventually. But it took a lot of work and working with a lot of friends.

You see I learned that folks don’t like gold when they know it comes from a goose. Many think the gold smells like a goose. I sniffed those eggs until my ears began to pop, but I couldn’t smell a thing. They had an image in their minds that they couldn't shake.

There were other folks who didn’t think I got ’em from Blunderbore. One group thought I fornicated with a silver-haired witch named Glusynda, and another group thought I was sodomized by Satan. I don’t know where they got such crazy ideas.

Oh, and then there were folks who somewhat sensibly thought that Blunderbore might come back and want his gold. These folks thought that maybe he could smell the golden eggs even if they couldn’t. I kept telling them that the rotting corpse in the forest gave out an odor you couldn’t miss - but that body had long stopped smelling anything. But they wouldn’t listen to me.

So, you see my problem, right?

How to change the golden eggs into meat, drink, clothes, property, animals, and everything else? I got pretty frantic. The whole thing really began to scare me.

I had dozens of golden eggs that I couldn’t sell. I probably had more gold than the Earl of Lancaster, but it wouldn’t do me any good if I couldn’t trade it. I thought and thought and came up with a plan, my first plan of many. The plan had two parts.

First, I sawed the eggs into little pieces.

Everyone around my village knew me, so little gold pieces wouldn’t trade any better than whole golden eggs.

So, for the second part of my plan I thought about other places where maybe I could sell the eggs or pieces of them. Some places were too close, and I’d be recognized. Some places were too far away. The roads to some places were filled with bandits. Some places weren’t known for honest men.

Then I thought about Kibworth. It seemed to have everything I needed, and it wasn’t even a full day’s walk. Your grandfather said that Kibworth men were honest and clever. He died with Simon de Montfort. But that was a long time ago, and your grandma and me had been poor ever since.

I put two chopped up eggs in my bag and headed off to Kibworth. It’s a nice walk to Kibworth and too far away from my village for anyone to recognize me.

I don’t know when the track to Kibworth was ever a proper road. Even back then, it looked like a trail that would vanish with one or two more saplings on the road or be erased by one more heavy rain. But I liked that road. I still do.

I left home about an hour before sunset. Birds were chirping and chattering away. The breeze was gentle, and the air was cool and clean as you breathed it in, cool and clean enough that the air sort of tickled the end of your nose. The road rises and falls but not too much. It’s not too flat or straight either. It’s the kind of road that makes you think there will be something interesting just out of sight over the next little rise.

There were no clouds that night and the moon was full. The heavens were filled with bright stars. Nothing bad at all happened on my journey. I walked all through the night and arrived in the morning just before I knew a good market was set to begin.

On the way, I practiced both speaking and my speech. I couldn’t sound like a country boy, but I couldn’t sound like a nobleman either. Noblemen don’t sell gold in towns on market days; country boys don’t have gold. I couldn’t sound too young, and I sure couldn’t sound too old. I also practiced just exactly what I was going to say, too. I mean, you can’t just walk up to a chap with a vegetable cart and say, “Hey, howabout all those vegetables for this gold nugget?” To succeed I had to do better than that.

Actually, about halfway to Kibworth, I realized my plan would never, ever work. Ever. There were too many things I was going to have to make a stranger believe.

I sat down by a stream to rest and think. It was a very noisy stream, babbling along. I heard sparks snapping lightly on the other side of the stream and saw little lights momentarily brightening up the green bushes lining the bank. Glowing fairies danced just above the water. I saw one little green fairy stuck in a spider’s web right next to me, and I freed her from it. Spiders need to eat - but they don’t need to eat fairies.

I could have sat there forever. Sometimes I think I did.

That green fairy buzzed by my face several times. I think she was happy to be free.

It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t do this by myself. That was the key. A better way to sell the eggs instantly came to me. I would make the townsfolk, or some of them, a proposal. If they helped me trade in my horde of goose gold, I would share the proceeds with them.

I felt so good. I swear that just as I thought this that green fairy with golden hair flew in front my face, smiled her pretty little teeth at me, and flew away in a flash, leaving a trail of sparks.

I shouted, “Thank you!” to her, but I’m not sure what I was thanking her for.

I felt better.  Much better. I noticed my gold bag seemed a tiny bit lighter, but I didn’t mind if the fairy took some. I had lots more. I resumed my walk refreshed.

The dawn was glorious and the birds began chirping again at first light.

The road widened a little just outside Kibworth. It wasn’t the main road running through the village. In fact, it kind of came in from an odd side of the town. I was a little closer to folk’s houses than seemed wise to me, but there was no denying that it was a road.

I can smell bullies miles away. Just ask Blunderbore. But my nose wasn’t twitching at all in Kibworth.

The market was not hard to miss. It had everything. Food. Drink. A bear on a chain. A juggler. Anyway, I decided to hold back and just listen … try to figure out who were the important people, who were the dealers, and who seemed trustworthy.

Here’s what I found.

Jack Pawley was a large, robust man and everyone seemed to listen to him. He had a booming voice. James Church was old, sort of lame, and wore an odd cap, but everything seemed to swirl around him. Hudde Cook seemed like a young James Church even though they looked nothing alike and weren’t related.

I introduced myself to each of them. I told them that I was just visiting, and then I got a little vague after that about my business in the village. I didn’t want them to think I was a thief, or it would be the gallows for me.

When I guessed that the market was about an hour from closing, I went back to each of them and offered to buy them an ale to discuss my proposal. Who could turn down free ale, I figured? I also figured that I probably needed to give something to get something.

Over our tankards, they mostly talked among themselves. I could tell they liked each other. Mostly. The longer they sat there, the more comfortable they got, but the further I faded into the background since I was the new face. So, I finally popped the question, artless and out of the blue.

“New friends,” I said, pulling one of my pouches out, “this is what I want to speak with you about.”

“Is that gold?” asked Hudde Cook.

“I’ve never seen so much gold!” said Jack Pawley, nearly shouting.

“Did you steal that, boy?” demanded James Church.

“It’s not stolen, friends. I can assure you of that,” I said.

“Keep talking,” said Hudde.

“It’s legal gold. I dug it out of the hills,” I said.

“No, you didn’t, boy!” said James.

I can fight giants and win. But I can’t lie worth a damn. I thought about making up another story, and then it occurred to me that lying was different than persuading, and I think I’m pretty good at persuasion.

“Ok. Ok. Truth. Have you heard of Blunderbore?”

“You’re the boy with the goose?!” blurted Jack.

“One and the same!" I winked. I'm not sure why, but I think the wink helped. It seemed, well, confident.

They all looked at me, then the gold.

“But doesn’t the gold smell like a goose?” asked Hudde.

I held my bag up and offered each one of them the opportunity to take a piece and smell it. They each took a piece, held it to their nostrils, and inhaled deeply.

“Didn’t smell a thing, did you?”

They shook their heads.

“Now you see my problem. No one will take this gold. It’s gold. It’s fine gold. It’s pure gold. It’s just gold! But people have an odd idea that it’s somehow tainted.”

“So, what do you want us to do?” asked James.

“I want you to sell the gold for me, and I’ll split the proceeds with you.”

“But we couldn’t sell the gold any easier than you can. Who’s going to believe that some Kibworth men suddenly came into a bunch of gold?” asked Hudde.

“Couldn’t you? I’ve watched the three of you all day, buying and selling. You’re good at it. You have talents.”

They looked pleased by my compliment. Then puzzled.

“We’re all too poor to be gold merchants. Everyone would think we were thieves or highwaymen,” said James.

He had a point. I was beginning to lose my confidence again.

I looked down. My gaze just happened to land on the ale in my tankard where I spied that little green fairy again, hovering right above the top of the liquid. She was smiling and winked at me. Then her mouth popped open like she wanted to tell me something, but instead I saw her fly out of my tankard. She left my tankard and popped into Jack Pawley’s tankard just as he took a drink.

I could see him pause for a second. I swear I saw that green fairy moving behind his eyes.

“Wait! I have an idea,” said Jack, who began waving his arms wildly at a giant man in the distance named Wilky.

Wilky was huge. Each hand could have wrapped halfway around my head, and his arms looked like timbers. Wilky was Kibworth’s blacksmith.

“Wilky, can you make a gold cross?” asked Jack.

“I can make anything. How much gold do you have?” asked Wilky.

I showed him the chopped-up egg and told him the story again. He looked scared. Big as he was, he would have run away, I think, if his friends didn’t seem so interested.

“I can cast those little crosses that people wear, and I can hammer out bigger crosses for churches and the like. Yes. I can make gold crosses,” said Wilky.

“My Kibworth friends, here is my proposal to you. I will supply golden eggs. Wilky will make them into crosses and maybe other jewelry, and you will sell them. One third to me; one third to Wilky, and one third to each of you for a sale. Do we have a deal?”

“You’re sure Blunderbore is dead?” asked Hudde.

“If I went to the place where he crashed into the earth, I could probably break off an ant-cleaned rib bone by now and bring it back to you. Do you want to see it?”

They all seemed convinced by my assurance.

“And you didn’t fornicate with the silver-haired witch?” “Or be sodomized by Satan?” asked Jack and Wilky nearly in unison.

“No! No! Why does everyone keep asking me that!? It’s irritating. Do I look like I would do that? Ah, never mind. Your faces give me the answer. Look, if you want, I’ll go seek confession. I’ll have the priest pour Holy Water on me. You’ll see that I don’t burn.”

“If you don’t mind that would make us feel much better” said both Jack and Wilky in perfect unison this time. Even Hudde nodded his head.

Fortunately, I had enough small coins left to convince the priest to sprinkle Holy Water on me. I even got him to dribble some on the gold. When I didn’t burn and my gold didn’t burst into flames, my new business partners were convinced that my story was true.

Now son, that was just the beginning of how I went from poor Jack Nash to rich Jean de Wystan. It didn’t happen overnight. Not at all.

Why have I told you this story? I want you to win in life, son. But I want you to win the right way. First, everything you have came from me, and everything I have came from a goose that somehow laid golden eggs. That was all just … well … luck. Second, I was honest with those Kibworth men, and they were honest with me. We had quarrels for sure, but they were always fair quarrels. Over the years, we became friends, and you know which one of those men is your grandfather, right? If I had been too timid or meek, nothing would have happened. If I hadn’t been kind to a fairy, I suspect nothing would have happened. If I had been too haughty or too demanding, I couldn’t have formed a business partnership.

I told you that I can smell a bully a mile away. Today I smelled the faint odor of a young one, and that’s why I’ve told you this story. Your father loves you very much.