The Tale Of The Returning Penny

There was once a man; a lazy, drunken rogue of a man named Thomas Corby who was always poor on account of constantly drinking or gambling away all his money.

And one day, Thomas was in his local Tavern wondering how he could afford to buy his next pot of ale when in walked a very peculiarly dressed gentleman with a blue overcoat and top hat covered in gold stars and moons and the strangest looking symbols and, sitting down next to Thomas, the man said,

“If I buy you an ale, friend, can I show you a trick with a penny?”.

Now Thomas thought that the man looked rather ridiculous in his peculiar coat and would normally have said something rude to someone like this strange gentleman but since the man was offering to buy him the ale, Thomas smiled and nodded saying he would be glad to see the man’s trick.

Then the man called over a barmaid and asked her for two pots of ale, paying her with a penny then, after the barmaid had gone away, the man whispered to Thomas,

“Now, watch what happens when the barmaid puts her penny in the till”.

So Thomas watched the barmaid putting the man’s penny into the cash register but then, to his amazement, not a moment later, the draw of the till opened itself and the penny leapt out; it leapt and hopped just like a flea, right across the bar and back into the mans outstretched palm.

Fortunately, the barmaids back had been turned and she hadn’t seen it and neither did she see it the other three times that the man paid for two pots of ale for he and Thomas.

Yet, in spite of the strangers great generosity to Thomas, all the while that this was happening he was thinking privately to himself.

“If only I could get my hands upon that magician’s penny then I’d never want for ale again”.

And then when the stranger, finally, raising his hat, bid good day to Thomas and got up to leave, that is when Thomas looked out of the Tavern window and, seeing that it was now late evening, thought to himself.

“It’s dark outside. If I follow this man then I can take his penny from him by force. I’ll follow him to the old bridge at the end of the road; stab him, take the coin from his pocket and throw his body over the bridge into the river. No one will ever know”.

And so that is what he did, following the man slowly at first and keeping himself in the shadows until, finally they got to the bridge, then he rushed over and he stabbed the man three times with his knife.

Then clutching his wounds, the man fell upon the ground and, while he was still dying, the callous Thomas went through the pockets of his overcoat until he found the penny that was red with its owners blood.

Then,  without even checking if he was alive or dead, Thomas hoisted the man’s body up over the side of the bridge and tipped it into the river.

But then, just as that moment, from behind him, Thomas heard a man shouting,

“Murder! Help! Police! Murder!”.

It was someone who, just by chance, had seen the body being thrown over the side and when he called out, a policeman who had also been drinking in the Tavern and was nearby came running.

Of course, Thomas, like any criminal would, tried to dispose of whatever evidence there was and all there was was that bloody coin.

Unfortunately, each time he tried to throw it into the river, it leapt right back up again and into his palm, still as red and as wet with blood as before.

And because of that unfortunate coin Thomas Corby was hanged, in fact the coin didn’t stop haunting him up till the day he was buried when, to the astonishment of his pallbearers, the coin leapt into his grave and so was buried with him and, so it is said, is still there within Thomas Corby’s grave even to this day.