Maurice Green’s Blue Pig

Maurice Green’s pig always won first prize in the village show, and Maurice worked hard to ensure it did. But all things must pass. The Tuckers’ pig was younger and plumper. They’d washed him in coal tar soap and covered him in baby powder, while Maurice’s just slept in a bed of lavender to keep him fresh. Maurice was downcast, so his wife went to get some more lavender – sneaking it from the Parson’s housekeeper’s garden. It didn’t make Maurice any happier. He couldn’t sleep for worrying. He got up and went out to Tuckers’ farm, ready to curse their pig. He took a hazel twig and planted it in a circle he’d drawn in the dust, but his heart wasn’t truly in this. As he was about to go the twig suddenly whizzed around the circle. Maurice took fright and fled home. In his hurry to get in he kicked over a bucket of blue paint near his pigsty. Next morning, his pig was all blue. She’d rolled in the paint! In the end neither Green’s nor Tucker’s pig won. The parson’s housekeeper went away with the prize, though her pig was small. The judges felt sorry that her lavender had all been cut to the ground the night before.