The Old King of Corfe

There was once an old fisherman who’d never had a child, though he and his wife had longed for one. One day he caught in his next a box covered in seashells. Inside he found a baby boy. He took the boy home and he and his wife raised him. When the boy was ten, a man with a crown came and told them that he was the King of Corfe and he would teach the boy to be the cleverest in Dorset. The fisherman agreed. For a whole year the boy was gone. When he came back he was as clever as anything. But the old King of Corfe offered to make him the cleverest in the country, and away again went the boy. This time he didn’t come back, so the fisherman set off to find him. He found him transformed into a dove by the King, who was really a wicked magician. The fisherman got the boy back, but the boy wasn’t free. The boy told the fisherman to sell him to the King in the form of a greyhound, but not to sell the collar, as the boy would send his spirit into that. It was done, but a spell still held him. Two more sales, said the boy – as a horse with a golden bridle first. The King simply rode the horse away. The boy and the King transformed themselves many times, until the boy became grains of corn, and the King became a chicken to peck them up, and the boy became a fox – and that was the end of the King. The boy made his way home and became a fisherman like his dad. If he worked his magic while out at sea, he never told anyone.