Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/399



Once upon no time, there lived a young Lad born of poor parents. He earned his living by working on a farm, and because he was nice-looking he was disliked by all the other boys of the village, who laughed at him whenever they could, whilst he never took any notice of their nonsense, but quietly went on with his work.

In the evenings, when all the peasants assembled in one place to tell each other stories, the boys used to spend their time mocking our Lad and cracking dry jokes about him; but he pretended not to understand any word said against him; he pretended to be slow-witted. So the boys nick-named him "The Ninny of the Village."

However, the farm-masters were pleased with him, and each one tried to get the Lad to work on his farm.

But when our Lad was passing through the village! Ooh! You should have seen the girls elbowing each other, and casting glances at him through their eyelashes. Quite true, they had something to look at, for our Lad was proudly handsome; his long raven locks fluttered upon his strong white neck that was white as the snow; his small moustache was. black, and just like a soft shadow over his upper lip. But his eyes! Dear me! He had a pair of eyes so beautiful that all the girls were pining for him.