Stone Soup

A travelling salesman came to Liddington, but all doors were closed to him, even though a storm was brewing. The harvest had failed, people were poor. At the end of the village was a poor little shack in which lived an old woman. She took him in, but she had no food. The salesman promised her a meal fit for a king – ‘stone soup’ – if she just had a cooking pot and water. Out she went to the well to get water. The village wives were there; they liked the idea of a meal fit for a king, so they followed the old woman home. The salesman boiled up the water, dropped in a stone, and tasted the soup, pronouncing it ‘good – but it’d be better with a bit of onion’. One woman had an onion. She ran home to fetch it and into the soup it went. So it went on. One had a carrot, another some potatoes, one even a little bit of meat. All these went into the soup until it was thick and hearty and there was enough to feed the whole village!