The Magic Boots

Once upon a time there lived a poor farmer who made his living by tending to a small field he rented from a greedy, selfish landowner. The field was not a very fertile field, in fact it was dry as a bone.

Yet nevertheless, the landowner still demanded a very high rent. During bad seasons when the harvest was poor, the farmer was often worried that his family would have nothing to eat except skinny turnips and wee carrots. During those rough times, he fretted selling his harvest at the market so he could make the money for the rent.

One day when it was time to pay rent and the farmer didn’t have a single coin to spare, he sent his son to ask the landowner for a little more time. “Son,” he said, “just do your best. Perhaps he will listen to reason this time.” The son went to the landowner to plead with him, but the greedy and selfish man wouldn’t hear of it.

“Tell your lazy father you can all pack your few trinkets and leave,” the miser said. “If you can’t pay my rent, you can’t stay on my land! Ha! The nerve!” And then he slammed the door in the boy’s desperate face.

The son was distraught and, his head hanging low, began the long trek home. As he crossed the field they worked, he was stopped by an old man with a prune for a face and a scraggly grey beard.

“Why are you so sad, my boy?” he asked with kindness, and the boy tearfully told him all about the field and the rent money and the horrible landowner who was kicking them out of their cottage, probably within days.

“Don’t be sad, chap. I’ll help you,” the old man…