He immediately fell upon his knees, saying, “May it please your Majesty, I am an honest cobbler and meant no harm.”
“No, no,” said the king, “nor shall receive any here, I promise you.”
He commanded the cobbler, therefore, to rise and be as merry as he was before; and though he knew him to be the king yet he should use the same freedom with him as he did when he mended his shoe. This kind speech of the king’s put the cobbler in as good humour as he was before. He told the king many of his best stories and he sang more of his jolly songs, very much to the satisfaction of the king and his nobles.
Now the king, considering the pleasant humours of the cobbler, how innocently merry he was, and free from any design, and how he laboured very hard, and took a great deal of pains for a small livelihood, was pleased, out of his princely grace and favour to allot him a liberal annuity of forty marks a year for the better support of his jolly humours and the maintenance of himself and his wife Joan. The king ordered that he should be admitted as one of the courtiers.
This was so much beyond his highest expectations that it pleased him greatly, much to the satisfaction of the king.
So after some bows and scrapes, he returned to his wife, Joan, with the joyful news of his kind reception at court.
From Gammer Gurton’s Historie.
THE STORY OF MERRYMIND
Frances Browne
Once upon a time there lived in the north country a certain poor man and his wife, who had two corn-fields, three cows, five sheep, and thirteen children. Twelve of these children were called by names common in the north country—Hardhead, Stiffneck, Tightfingers, and the like; but when the thirteenth came to be named, either the poor man and his wife could remember no other name, or something in the child’s look made them think it proper, for they called him Merrymind, which the neighbours thought a strange name, and very much above their station; however, as they showed no other signs of pride, the neighbours let that pass. Their thirteen children grew taller and stronger every year, and they had hard work to keep them in bread; but when the youngest was old enough to look after his father’s sheep, there happened the great fair, to which everybody in the north country went, because it came only once in seven years. It was held on midsummer-day, not in any town or village, but on a green plain, lying between a broad river and a high hill, where it was said the fairies used to dance in old and merry times.