North Wales Folk Tales for Children [S.S. Col.] [Fairy Tales col.] by Collins Fiona

Author:Collins, Fiona [Collins, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Fiction, Folk Tales, Short Stories
ISBN: 9780750968812
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2016-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

The coins had all turned to leaves.

12

SIX AND FOUR

ARE TEN

Dic Spot the Cunning Man was born in 1710. His real name was Richard Morris, and he got his nickname because he had a big spot near his nose. Dic’s Auntie Deborah was a fortune-teller, and she taught him to tell fortunes when he was only a teenager. He was so good that, before long, no-one wanted Auntie Deborah to tell their fortune any more: they all wanted Dic Spot.

Soon he was good enough to be called Dyn Hysbys, a Cunning Man, and he became famous all over North and Mid-Wales. He travelled around telling fortunes and making magic.

One day Dic Spot was on his way to Llanrwst in the Conwy valley. A farmer there wanted Dic to tell his fortune, to help him decide if buying some fields near the river Conwy was a good idea. Dic didn’t have a horse. He was walking there. It was a long walk, and he was getting tired. He stopped at the inn in Henllan for something to eat, because he knew that he still had a long way to go.

Dic ordered beer, bread and cheese and he enjoyed his meal. He was very happy with his food, but when the bill came he was not so happy. The landlord wanted him to pay four pence for the beer and six pence for the bread and cheese! This was much, much more than the proper price, and Dic knew it. The greedy landlord thought it would be easy to cheat Dic because he was a stranger. But he was making a big mistake!

Dic paid the bill without saying a word but, before he left, he scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper, folded it very small and tucked it under the leg of the table. The landlord smiled at Dic as he left. Dic smiled back. He knew what would happen to the next person who went into that room, because the piece of paper had a spell on it.

As it happened, no-one else went into that room for the rest of the day. When it was getting late, the landlord and landlady went upstairs to bed, telling the sleepy maid to clean Dic’s table before she finished for the night. She shuffled wearily into the room with a cloth in her hand, but as soon as her foot touched the floor of the room, Dic’s spell started to work. She didn’t mean to, she didn’t want to, but she couldn’t stop herself. She began to jump and hop around in a mad dance, all the while shouting out a song:

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