Tale: The Tarnished Groat

The Tarnished Groat

Once, in a far off kingdom, there was an eccentric king who delighted in his kingdom, his people, and all of creation at large.  His chief delight was his birthday.

Although few saw the king himself, there was over his castle a flag that flew when he was present in the castle.  Upon his birthday, he always made sure he was present in his castle and made certain to fly flags of all colors and lengths about the parapets.  There were booming fireworks displays launched from the parapets into the sky every night after the great day for a whole twelve days.  

Every few years the king would take the grand celebration even further than the walls of his castle and the skies above it.  He would occasionally hire minstrels, gypsies, and mummers to go out into all the realm and entertain the people.  Another year he hired every baker in the entire kingdom to make a dozen pastries stuffed with chocolate cream to be delivered to every citizen.  One particularly notable year the king sent out his private menagerie on a tour to visit every city, town, village, and grouping of huts so that all could share in the delight of his exotic animals.  

One amazing and remarkable year the king did something that would be talked about not just for a few years, but for all of the generations of his citizens until the end of time.

It was a beautiful morning in the summer when all of the children of the realm woke to find, pinned to their pillow, an invitation to join the king in celebration of his birthday at his castle garden.  

The castle garden was a legendary wonder that captured the imagination and acclaim of other kingdoms, so much so that many people traveled vast leagues of distance to enjoy the lushness and fantastic nature of it.  I cannot say for certain, but rumors have reached my ears that there were people who upon viewing the fruit trees alone, renounced their citizenship to other nations, their fealty to other kings, and forsook all to live near those fantastic gardens.

Now, the chief amazement of the king’s gardens was the maze.  The maze lay at the heart of the garden and its walls were not made of hedge or stone or brick, but was a living part of the garden.  And when I say that it was living, my dears, I mean that it was, of course, walls of plant life, but more than a few who wandered that maze have said that the walls moved.  They made wild claims that something within the maze created different pathways, or cul-de-sac, or caused whole sections opened up where none had been before.  

It is acknowledged legend that at least two of the king’s subjects walked into the maze and never came out again.  No one in living memory, at the time of our story, had seen the maze move, and it had been many greats of grandfathers ago that those two subjects reportedly disappeared.  The king’s maze was now considered just that; a simple, though gorgeous, maze.  

So, the parents of the invited children, and I must remind you here that absolutely every child in the realm was invited magically and silently in one night, thought nothing of any peculiarity.  They were proud that their children had been invited and almost as delighted as the king himself that they would all go to the castle and enjoy the day.  

When the families arrived, the guards at the gate of the maze informed them that only the children would be allowed beyond the gate.  There were presents from the king within and while he trusted his citizens to be honest and good, he trusted the honesty and goodness of the children of his kingdom far more.  The guards explained that there was a present for every child of the kingdom, that there was no need for shoving or running or grabbing.  Every child was to pick up the first present they encountered and bring it to the gate where they would open it before the guards and then return home.

Well, as you can naturally expect, once the gates opened, despite the assurances of the guards, the children commenced to shoving and running.  The grabbing came a little bit later. 

The parents thought nothing but good and hopeful thoughts.  How wonderful it was that they were subjects of such an excellent king who gave the people, and especially their children, presents upon his own esteemed birthday.  You can be sure that the parents dreamed up the potential value of the gifts that would soon be in their children’s arms.  The King was so wealthy, so generous, and delighted in giving so freely.  Who wouldn’t spare a wonder to just how great such a gift might be.

There was a particular boy whose name is lost to history, but we must call him something, and so we shall call him…Lewis, I suppose is as good a name as any.  What happened to him is far more remarkable than any name we could pin on him.

Now, Lewis was an average boy in every respect.  He was the son of a farmer, and minded his parents, went to church, did well enough in school, and enjoyed summer dips in the swimming hole near his home, just like I’m sure you do.  

His loving parents urged him on into the maze with a cheer.  He wasn’t too sure about it at first.  It was so green and the walls so very tall.  The corn his father grew was low as grass before those towering, wondrous walls.  Lewis soon became aware of the herd of children running ahead of him and he followed that impulse to join in the herd at full speed that all young creatures possess.

Many found presents right away, laying right out in the open.  Others had to climb up the walls where they found gift boxes in the limbs of trees.  Shouts of joy and peals of laughter echoed through the green halls, and Lewis smiled beatifically at the good fortune of his comrades, looking forward to his own present from the Sovereign.  

While many ran back to the gate immediately,as instructed, others plopped down on the ground and grunted and groaned with effort trying to free their gift from it’s lavishly wrapped confines, but the wrapping wouldn’t budge.  Tired and frustrated by the effort, they eventually all followed after those who remembered early that they were to take the present outside of the maze to be revealed.  Lewis took note of this and continued on deeper and deeper into the maze.  

So many children ran past him, with their prizes held high above their heads, that a despairing thought started small in the back of his head.  He knew that there was a gift for him in there somewhere, but would he find it as easily like the rest or still be searching by nightfall?

Moments later the maze grew strangely quiet.  He no longer heard the shrieks of delight from other children.  And then it happened.  The walls of the verdant labyrinth moved.

It was so quick and silent that he almost dismissed the movement as a trick of the light.  Lewis knew that where once there had for certain been a wall on his right, there was now a path that led to a small area with a marble fountain in the center.  There at the base of the stone fountain lay a wrapped box.  He knew it must be his because it was wrapped in his favorite shade of his favorite color and bound up with a bow of his second favorite color

Lewis wrapped his arms around it in the same way you once wrapped your arms around your mama’s legs.  He ran full tilt through the maze with a vast grin across his face, so broad and constant that it caused his cheeks to ache.

    When he finally arrived at the maze’s entrance he had expected his parents to react with great joy, but there was something in their smiles that made him wonder what was the matter.  Most of the other families had left by then and the few who were walking away seemed somewhat downcast.  Lewis wondered why a girl being carried by her father, tears streaming down her face though she didn’t wail, was carrying a chipped teacup.

    Lewis’ parents beckoned him over with a small amount of cautious excitement, and he soon forgot about the others.  Full of child’s boundless enthusiasm, he was about to have a go at the wrapping when he remembered something and looked to the nearby guard who smiled and nodded.  With that permission secured he tore into the wrapping and lifted the lid of the big box and beheld the contents, his gift from the king himself, sitting on a small satin pillow.  And what was it, my dears?  What great gift had such a generous king given him?  

A groat. 

    “What in the thousand worlds is a groat?” you may rightly ask.  That is precisely what I asked when I first heard this tale.  I hadn’t a clue, until I did what you should always do when you don’t know a thing, and that is to look it up in a book.

    A groat is a small silver coin worth about four pennies, if you happen to use pennies where you come from.  It isn’t the smallest thing of value, but it is just nearly.  Worth more than a penny but less than a nickel.

    Lewis stared at the groat with all sorts of confusion written across his little face.  It wasn’t even a freshly minted, shiny groat.  It was old and tarnished.  Your granny probably has an old tea set that she has to scrub real hard to make shiny because of the black tarnish that will cover it from age and use, or even sometimes disuse.  It’s inky splotches are nasty looking, to be sure, and makes one wonder at its inherent value.  

    Lewis’ father was a good and smart man, as most farmers are.  Just like most farmers, he loved his son very, very much and so, when he saw the confusion and disappointment on his son’s face, he took that boy’s face in one hand and lifted it to meet his eyes.  He told Lewis something very important.  

    “Son,” he said quietly but firmly, “it doesn’t matter that it’s a groat.  Because the king gave it to you, it’s worth much more than any groat in any man’s money purse.  You keep it, and you remember this day when the king gave you a thing.”

    I’d love to be able to tell you that Lewis took his father’s wise words, possibly the wisest words ever spoken by a man, and put them into practice never wondering again why the king gave him something so simple, so plain, and so tarnished.  Like many of the other children in the maze that day, he wondered if maybe someone else had the present the king had intended for him.  Was it a mistake?  What if he had just been faster or his eyes spotted another present more swiftly?  Was the king just giving away stuff he had lying around after he ran out of treasures?  

    Lewis did obey his wise father in a small measure.  The groat ended up in a drawer in a simple desk in his room and over the years he would be cleaning it out and the silver would glint in the light; what precious little silver was exposed from years of tarnish.  He would look at it, remember that day, and sigh wistfully wondering what could have been if he’d been faster or more observant, if he had gotten one of the really good gifts.  Lewis would occasionally wonder if he should just throw the groat away, but his father’s words always came back to him, and faithfully into the drawer the groat would go again.  The tarnished bit of silver survived toys, and letters, and other perceived junk that boys treasure in their younger years above gold, jewels and diamonds.

    Plenty of the children of the kingdom did actually throw away their gifts, I’m sad to say.  But who could blame them?  

There were those who received precious and valuable gifts, I must inform you.  More than a few opened their boxes to find tiaras, brooches, jeweled hair pins, or ivory fans and the like.  The significant number however received things they believed worthless and cast them into the rubbish heap eventually whether through painful memory or a lack of perceived value.

    When all of those young people became teenagers a ripple of rumor spread in concentric circles throughout the entire kingdom that quite suddenly some of these very plain looking broken items began to exhibit strange powers.  

One boy, who had been one of the scrawniest kids in school you ever did see, was crying a good deal because he was scared of the monsters he swore prowled around the outside of his little thatch roofed home at night.  Naturally, it was nothing more than the work of a full moon casting shadows on the window.  One night hiis mother took down the patchwork, threadbare dolly he’d been given on the King’s birthday to cuddle with since she could soothe the boy no more.  The next morning, I tell you truly, that scrawny little boy, a wee thing that the grasshoppers tried to bully more than a few times, he grew to the full height and build of a man overnight.  Scared of shadows on the wall anymore?  No, sir.  Not likely.  

    You remember I told you of the girl with the broken tea cup?  A week after the rumor of the scrawny boy turned giant was the sensation of the entire kingdom, that girl woke to a drip, drip drip.  She pulled her blanket up over her head to discover that her blanket had a large spot on it.  At first she was in a frustrated rage that her papa hadn’t patched the roof as he promised to do, but the sun was bright and the birds chirping outside as if it were a holy Sunday.  She investigated and found, on the wooden shelf above her dainty bed, a pool of liquid with the broken teacup sitting right in the center.  All of its own accord it started filling with tea.  She patched it as best she could and then it started overflowing the edge.  She ran to her ma for buckets and mugs and frying pans, as it just filled again and again.

    By the end of it she discovered that daily it poured out the quantity of five piping hot pots full of tea a day, and if she turned it a half turn to the left, making the handle go from north to south, it would serve coffee in the same amounts.  If she turned the handle from west to east she could then pour enough sweetened milk to please any number of guests.  And guests she had, I may tell you.  That pitiful little girl, crying in the arms of her papa because the king gave her a broken tea cup, grew up to throw the best tea parties in the entire kingdom.  Why?  Because what else would one do with five piping hot pots of tea a day?  You make crumpets and shortbread and invite the neighbors and the relatives around to help enjoy your bounty.  That’s what you do.

    Our boy Lewis heard these stories and many more otherwise, and with reverent awe he went up to that old desk, pulled open the draw and took the groat in his hand.  He set it on top of the desk and stared at it, wondering what marvelous gift it could be.  Oh how his heart was kindled with thoughts of the possibilities.  Lewis smiled in expectation, willing the groat to manifest its power.  

He heard how those who had gotten valuable gifts on the King’s birthday were suddenly willing to trade the gold crowns, and the jeweled brooches for the magical items.  He couldn’t help but delight that someone might offer to trade him and he might see slight jealousy in their eyes.  Oh, the imagined value of his groat in that moment was at least half the kingdom to Lewis.  And what of those who had thrown their birthday present away?  Oh, they were digging through trash pits, rubbing this, shaking that, tipping those over, anything, hoping against hope to find their forsaken magic presents.  Lewis beamed wide eyed knowing that he had followed wisdom and there his present from the king was right in front of him.

    For a full forty hours Lewis stared at the tarnished groat.

    He tried everything.  He pressed it, breathed on it, polished it, rubbed it between his fingers, threw it against a wall, set it in the fire, fed it to one of his mother’s chickens, had his little sister punch him as he held it close to his chest, and he even jumped off the top of his father’s woodshed to see if it could make him fly.  That last test caused him to endure quite a lot of pain and decide to give up that foolishness, but the groat certainly did not make him fly.  

    Lewis put the groat back where he got it, and slammed the drawer with a huff.  He flopped upon his bed and his bottom lip began to quiver.  It had been just a groat from the king all along.  Trash.  A haphazard present when there was nothing else left for the king to give.

    Many years passed, and many firework nights commemorating the king’s birthday lit up the night sky before Lewis thought again, intentionally this time, of the King’s groat.  Lewis grew into a fine young man with a family of his own and took over his father’s duties on the farm.  He still had his old desk which still had the groat lying patiently inside his junk drawer.

    Times were hard for Lewis and his family.  There was enough to eat, but anxiety gripped the young man’s heart.  And why shouldn’t it?  He had a wife, a daughter, and a young son of his own, who reminded him all too dearly of himself at that age, to provide for.  To see them suffer the pangs of hunger would shred his heart.  Money was hard to come by.  

    He was cleaning the mud off his boots when it happened.  Well, I say cleaning, but “carving” the mud away might be a more appropriate term.

    “I beg yer pardon, sir,” a gravelly voice spoke near him.  

    Lewis turned and saw a man clad in threadbare clothing standing a small ways off and clutching an equally threadbare sack over his shoulder.  He was clearly a beggar, given that more of than half the number  of his toes showed through the shoes on his feet.  His hair was greasy and his eyebrows hung scraggly over a pair of old but kind eyes.

    Frustrated at the mud on his boots, Lewis replied to the beggar with a glare the man hadn’t earned and Lewis knew it.  Lewis sighed, sure that he would have to turn the beggar away empty handed, but he would have to hear the man out.

    “Sorry ter bother you, kind sir, but times is hard and I was wondering if ye’d have a coin or two perhaps ye could spare for an old man without so much as a home.”

    Lewis’ father had always told him truths and proverbs and one repeated most often that one should give when one can.  The young man felt horribly that he couldn’t give the beggar anything.  Food was getting so low for him and his family that he worried he’d be taking food from his son’s mouth to feed a stranger.

    “I’m sorry, sir.  I promise you that if I could grant you your wish I would.  Times have fallen hard upon us as well.  I cannot offer you food, or a coin, but you can sleep in the night in the barn if you like.”

    The beggar chuckled graciously.

    “I’ll be able to find a nice place by the river, like as not.  But I thank you.”

    The beggar turned away and began to hobbled back down the road.  

    Lewis felt his heart ache within him.  What a terrible misfortune, to be on the brink of not being able to provide for his family nor give from their bounty to one in need.

    He saw the beggar stop, and turn, and call.

    “Are ye sure yeh haven’t even so much as a groat upon you?”

    Lewis was about to let out a flabberghast in laughable, outraged amazement.  But then a distant memory, a long forgotten silver shine, found its way to the fore of Lewis’ compassion.

    The young man set his boots aside and smiled a weak grin.  The groat was so worthless, so tiny, so small that it wouldn’t even buy his family a nut, but he was glad that it might do something for the beggar.

    “Actually, I do have exactly that sir.  A groat.  Please wait here while I fetch it.”

    It was but the work of a moment for Lewis to fetch the groat, tarnished and warm in hand.  He knew precisely where it was and smiled at the memory.  At least the king’s gift would do well enough for someone other than him.  His father would have been pleased, he considered, because he did not throw it away as others had theirs.  It had gone into another person’s hands rather than a trash heap.  Even if it was nothing, it remained a gift rather than garbage.

    “Good sir,” Lewis spoke kindly to the beggar as he placed the tarnished groat in the man’s grimy hand, “Please take this with my family’s blessings and may it do you some good.”

    The shaggy brows raised and a snaggletooth smile spread across the dirty face as the beggar replied, “You’re one of God’s own favorite children, sir.  A beggar’s blessing upon you.”

    And with that the beggar began to shuffle his way back down the road and Lewis returned to his mud caked boots and his cares.

    A moment of quiet passed when suddenly the voice of the beggar called back to Lewis.

    “Begging your pardon sir, you’ve given me a groat and one of the king’s silver pieces.”

    Lewis looked up quizzically, certain that the beggar must be out of his mind.  His cares must have been more bothersome than he thought to miss that.  He and his family might have butter with their bread tonight.  When did he squirrel that silver piece away for a rainy day?  Or was it his wife?  

    “I thank you for your honesty, sir.”

    Lewis opened his hand and the groat and the silver piece clinked together.  He handed the groat back to the beggar who then smiled and thanked him.  The beggar lifted his cap in respect, revealing a red band on his forehead like the imprint of a crown, and pronounced the beggar’s blessing once more.

    The young man stared in wonder at the large coin, flipping it over and noting that it was real by placing it between his teeth and giving it a good tug.

    “Ye’ve done it again, sir.  I appreciate you trying to bless an old penniless beggar, but you’ve no need to give me gold when you promised me a groat.”

    And sure enough the beggar was right.  

Plunk.  Plunk.  

The two coins fell into Lewis’ hand. 

“How did it happen?” Lewis begged the beggar to know.

His eyes were wide and full of wonder.  Lewis’ mind couldn’t accept what had just happened, but the beggar himself simply shrugged as if this sort of thing happened every single day.

“I was merely rubbing the groat between my fingers absentmindedly.  Instead of one coin I felt two, and there it was.”

Lewis did the same motion and there again was a silver coin, worth a hundred times more than the groat.  And then a gold coin as he did the motion again.  Silver again, then gold again, until he had a pile at his feet next to his muddy boots. 

The young man laughed and the beggar grinned.

“By heaven, what miracle is this?  Here, my friend.  Take as much of this pile as you can carry.  It’s never ending!” Lewis exclaimed turning to the beggar who was no longer there.  

He had vanished into thin air entirely.