A Profitable Deal

In ancient times, in the county of Lincolnshire, ditches and trenches were always dug between fields and farms. That was just the way it was done.
At that time, there lived a farmer named Nash in Namby. His affairs were going well, and he decided to buy some land that lay next to his own. The price asked for it was quite low. To tell the truth, he was even puzzled that it was so cheap. But he thought to himself: well, it must be my lucky day.

So he went to town to settle all the paperwork and sign the deed, and in the evening, he went to take a look at his new land. He walked slowly, pondering where to put a new gate—you probably know that the English have always surrounded their fields with hedges and, for convenience, made gates in them—yes, so he was thinking about where to place a new gate and where to build another bridge over the ditch. A bridge was now essential; otherwise, how would he move a cart from one field to another, or a plow, or anything else? However, as soon as he jumped over the ditch and stepped onto his new land, who do you think he met? The very same shaggy, tailed bogeyman! Ugh, what a giant! And his hands—not hands, but paws, longer than cart shafts.

"What are you doing wandering around on my land, eh?" the shaggy bogeyman asked sternly.

"Your land?" was all Mr. Nash dared to say, though he had some stronger words on the tip of his tongue. But he decided it wasn’t worth picking a fight with such a hulking monster—he was as big as a six-year-old stallion, if not bigger! Better to talk things over calmly.

"Whose else? This is my land!" roared the bogeyman.

Well, they both sat down to discuss the matter. Mr. Nash said it was his land and he wouldn’t give it up. The bogeyman said it was his and he wasn’t about to give it up either. Then Mr. Nash suggested they go to town together to see the judge and ask whose land it really was according to the law.

"No way!" protested the bogeyman. "The law means nothing to me. There’s no justice in the law!"

In short, the argument seemed endless, so the bogeyman proposed a solution: let the farmer work the field, sow it, and do all the rest, and they would split the harvest equally. Mr. Nash, of course, thought to himself why he should do all the work and then share the harvest with this shaggy, tailed freak, but he kept quiet. Instead, he came up with an idea.

"Fine," he said. "We’ll split it! But first, let’s agree: will you take the tops or the roots? And remember, a deal is a deal! No backing out later."

The bogeyman thought and thought and finally said he’d take the tops. They agreed firmly on that.

So what did Billy Nash do? He plowed the field and planted potatoes!

And so it happened that when the harvest was ready and the bogeyman came for his share, all he got was withered potato tops and not a single potato.

Well, the bogeyman was furious! He swung his huge, shaggy fist at the farmer, but a deal was a deal. He had chosen the tops, so he had no one to blame. But he swore that next year he wouldn’t be fooled again—no, this time he’d choose the roots, and that was that.

Billy Nash happily agreed. He plowed the field again and sowed it—with what, do you think? Of course, wheat!

And when it came time to divide the harvest, the bogeyman was even angrier. Right before his eyes, Billy filled sacks with golden grain and bundled up the straw, while the bogeyman got nothing but stalks and dry roots.

The bogeyman raged like a wild bull.

"Ah, you cheat, you swindler, you swamp rat, you web-footed goose!" he shouted at the farmer, shaking his huge, shaggy fists. "Next time you won’t trick me! You’ll sow wheat again, and we’ll reap it together: I’ll start from one end, and you from the other, and each will take what he can reap."

You can probably guess the bogeyman’s reasoning: since he was as strong as a six-year-old stallion, he’d be able to reap the whole field before the farmer even got started on his half.

So Billy Nash didn’t know what to say. But like it or not, he had to agree—the bogeyman was in a real fury. And when the time came, Billy plowed the field and sowed it with wheat again. He sowed it, but he kept racking his brains, trying to figure out how to outsmart the bogeyman this time. And, as luck would have it, the wheat grew abundantly. The poor farmer couldn’t rest, thinking that almost all of it would go to that vile, lazy bogeyman.

Now, it so happened that in those parts lived a wise old man. Some even said he was born on the eve of a holy feast. Well, never mind that, but it was certain that he was the seventh son in the seventh generation. And he could foretell the future and give wise advice.

So one evening, without telling anyone where he was going, Billy Nash went to see this old man to ask what he should do about his precious wheat. The wise old man chanted a spell and then whispered something in Billy’s ear, which put him in a very cheerful mood. He turned back home, feeling quite pleased, thinking that the money he’d paid the wise old man was well spent.

The next day—though it wasn’t a Sunday—Billy Nash went to look at his wheat. After gazing at it for a while, he decided it wouldn’t grow any taller but would only ripen and fill out. So he went straight to the blacksmith and asked him to make a lot of iron rods, as tall as his wheat.

The next day—or maybe the day after—the rods were ready, and Billy took them to the field and stuck them into the ground next to the wheat stalks, but only on the bogeyman’s half of the field.

And so, when the wheat had turned golden and its heavy heads drooped to the side, on a fine, clear day, Billy Nash and the bogeyman went to the field and began to reap: one starting from one end, the other from the opposite end. Both seemed very pleased: of course, each thought he was about to outwit the other!

Well, Mr. Nash was a good reaper and moved forward quickly. But the bogeyman couldn’t figure out—he wasn’t very bright—why nothing was working out for him. He didn’t even notice that, along with the wheat, he was trying to cut the iron rods. What a fool! He had to stop frequently to sharpen his sickle—clearly, the iron rods were dulling it. And every time, he sat down to rest, because, well, reaping iron rods is no easy task, you can imagine!

Meanwhile, Mr. Nash just kept moving forward, swinging his sickle as if it were child’s play, tying sheaves and stacking them. They worked like this all through the fine, clear day, with the sun beating down on them.

Finally, the bogeyman couldn’t take it anymore. He dropped his sickle and fell to the ground with a loud groan.

"Take your cursed land!" he howled. "The land and everything on it! I don’t want anything to do with it! I don’t ever want to see it again!"

And he trudged away. And he never appeared on Billy Nash’s land again.

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A Profitable Deal

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