The Boy With Lambs Wool
By well-wisher
- 373 reads
Once the wife of a shepherd gave birth to a boy covered, from head to toe, in fleece just like a lamb calling him Agnellus which means lamb.
But even when his parents sheared off the boys wool their neighbours wouldn't accept him and saw him as a monster.
"Agnellus is half sheep and half human", they all said, "An abomination; a freak".
Then, however, one day a cloud shepherd built a stone house ontop of a high hill overlooking the boys cottage.
And the cloud shepherd was a kind of wizard who could whistle up a wind dog that would herd storm clouds over farmers cottages to strike them with lightning or, in the hot summer days, would herd up all the rainclouds in the sky so that rain couldn't fall on all the land round about his hill and it became drought ridden.
Then, when people became desperate for rain, the storm shepherd would charge them high prices for it.
But then, one day, because his mother needed water so badly that she was dying of thirst and because they couldn't afford to pay the cloud shepherds high water prices, Agnellus decided to climb up the hill and get water for himself.
When the cloud shepherd saw the boy climbing the hill however, he whistled for his wind dog and sent it down the hill to attack him.
And the wind dog pounced upon the boy and might have killed him with its biting cold if it were not for the thick fleece that covered him or blown him off the hill if he had not, snapping a branch off of a tree thrown it into a nearby cave.
Fortunately, when he threw the branch into the cave the winddog rushed into the cave to fetch it and, when it did, the boy rolled a boulder infront of the cave mouth, stopping the winddog from escaping.
But then the boy continued to climb up the hill and so the cloud shepherd hurled out a pair of flying shears that were so sharp that they cut through everything in their path, both trees and standing stones upon the hill and though the boy tried to outrun the flying shears they seemed to follow him, like a hawk, wherever he ran and even, swooping down, sheared the wool from the top of his head.
Fortunately, the boy had his fathers old wooden crook with him that was curved at the top like a hook and though it was no defence against the sharp blades of the flying shears, with its hook he managed to catch hold of one of the shears round handles.
Then, driving the other end of the crook into the hillside to stop the shears from carrying it off, the boy continued up the hill until, finally he reached the top but then seeing him, the cloud shepherd aimed his magical shepherds staff at him and lightning shot out of it towards him.
Now, although the boy, being as nimble and surefooted as a sheep, was able to avoid being struck by the lightning he didn't know how he could get past the cloud shepherds hail of lightning bolts and was beginning to give up hope and think of turning back.
Just at that moment, however, a pair of curling ramshorns sprouted ontop of the boys head and so, charging towards the cloud shepherd as fast as a rutting ram in springtime, he butted the old wizard so hard that he went flying right off of the hillside and down onto some sharp, jagged rocks below.
Then Agnellus gave water to his mother and to all the other thirsty people of his valley and when he did they no longer called him a monster, an abomination or a freak but a hero, a good neighbour and a friend.
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