he's done well in the foot combat. And now it's  time for a parade so I've got my work cut out.  

The blacksmith's got his harness, he's knocking  the dings out of it. Which reminds me... I heard  

a great story about a blacksmith and a miller.  Make yourself comfortable, this won't take long

So, once in a village not far from  here, there lived a miller. Huge, great,  

hulking giant of a fellow he was. Now this was  because he spent his day in the mill, carrying in  

great big sacks full of grain, grinding them up to  make flour, and then putting them into sacks again  

and taking the flour out to give to bakers to  bake bread. Well, you can imagine, his clothing  

and his apron were white and wherever he went he  sort of left a trail of flour dust behind him.  

His best friend in the village was the blacksmith.  

Now the blacksmith couldn't have been more  different. The blacksmith was small and wiry,  

there wasn't an ounce of fat on him, he was  all muscle. And that's because he spent his day  

at the forge, pumping away at the bellows  to get the fire to the right temperature  

and then hammering away at pieces of iron to  make useful things like nails and horseshoes.  

His apron, and his clothing, well... they  were all black because he spent all his time  

stood next to a fire and he was forever  getting singed and burnt by the embers.  

Now, it was generally held in the village that  these two - the blacksmith and the miller - were  

the most incorrigible rogues they had ever met.  And if anything ever went missing in the village,  

the blame was always put at the door of  either the miller, or the blacksmith, or both.

One evening, the miller and the blacksmith  were enjoying a few cups of ales  

and, as they always did,  they talked about their exploits.  

Talking soon turned to boasting,  boasting then turned to bragging,  

and in the end the two of them were arguing  about which one of them was the best thief.  

Well the miller couldn't take it anymore. He leapt  to his feet. "Right! There is only one way we can  

settle this my friend - a contest. We must have a  contest to see which of us is the greatest thief."

"Very well" said the blacksmith, "I  accept, and may the best man - me - win."

The miller thought to himself for a moment  

and then he smiled. "You know that farmer that  had the big orchard of walnut trees, the one who  

loved walnuts, the one who died a few days ago  and we buried this morning. The one who insisted  

that at his burial he was buried with a bag of  his favourite walnuts. Well, I am going to go  

to his walnut orchard tonight and I'm going to  take a sack with me and steal all his walnuts."

"Ha!" said the blacksmith. "That's nothing...  I'm going to go to the field of the farmer  

who's forever boasting about having  the finest sheep in the whole county  

and I'm going to steal away his prize,  fat ewe. Now I suggest that once we've  

committed our crimes we meet somewhere  quiet, somewhere where nobody will see us..."

"Ah!" said the miller, "what  about the porch of the church?"

"Excellent!" said the blacksmith,  "then we will meet there.  

And then we can go back to the mill and enjoy some  walnuts and roast mutton." And with that the two  

of them - the miller and the blacksmith - snuck  off into the darkness to commit their crimes...

Well, truth be told, the miller's job was  the easier of the two for all he had to do  

was walk down to the farmer's orchard, find  himself a ladder, prop it up against a tree,  

climb into the tree, empty as  many of the walnuts as he could  

into the great big sack that he brought with him  from the mill and then move on to the next tree.  

So he went from tree to tree to tree. It didn't  take him long until the sack was completely full.  

Very quietly he dragged the sack up, up to the  church yard, opened the gate to the churchyard,  

walked up the path and sat  himself down in the porch.

By now it was quiet late in the evening and he  was quite hungry. And he couldn't resist it. So he  

put his hand into the sack of walnuts,  started taking them out, crushing them  

in his great big paws and then  he sat there munching away.

By now it would have been about  nine o'clock in the evening.  

The sexton... now the sexton is a servant of  the parish priest. And his jobs are to keep the  

churchyard and church neat and tidy, to dig graves  as required, but also at around about the hour of  

nine to go up to the churchyard to ring the curfew  bell. And this is the bell they rung every night  

just to let everybody know that it's time they  were in their bed, going to sleep, and not causing  

any mischief. This was the part of his job he  really hated. He wrapped himself up in a big,  

black cloak to keep himself warm and now he made  his way up to the churchyard to ring the bell.  

Well you can imagine his surprise when  looking up from the gate of the church  

towards the porch he could see a  figure. Something white and luminous.  

Even more frightening, as he looked at the  figure, it was putting its hand into a great  

big sack and taking out something,  cracking it and eating the contents.

"Lord preserve us" said the sexton, "it's  that poor man that we buried this morning.  

The man who loved walnuts. His  ghost has come back to haunt us!"

Well, with that, the sexton ran for all he  was worth, he ran back to his house. Now,  

the sexton's house mate was a poor, sick  man. And his sickness meant he was lame  

and couldn't move his legs, so when the sexton  got back and woke him up in a great big panic,  

this man was a little bit aggravated.  "What do you want?" he cried out.

"Quick, you must come with me! Something terrible  has happened! You know that fellow we buried this  

morning, the farmer who loved walnuts? His ghost  has come back. He's sat in the church porch with  

his bag of walnuts and he's eating away. You must  come with me, we must find out what this means!"

Well, his house mate was not best pleased to  have been woken up in the middle of the night.  

"Are you sure?" he said.

"Yes!" said the sexton, "I'm  quite sure. I saw him clearly!"

"Urgh, I can't come with you" said the poor  man. "To start off with, look at me - I've got  

my night shirt on. I'm not going to get dressed.  Secondly, you forget I am sick, I cannot walk."

"That does not matter!" said the sexton. "I  will carry you my friend". And with that,  

he hoisted the man up on to his back and  carried him in the direction of the church.

The miller was getting bored. He had been in the  porch for quite a while now and was looking about  

when... in the distance what did he see... he saw  a dark figure with something white on its back.  

'The blacksmith has done it then' thought  the miller, 'he's got the sheep...excellent!'

And with that, the miller  whispered in the darkness...

"I see you have him. Looks juicy!  Let's take it home and roast it!"

Well, the sexton on hearing these words  wasn't sure what it meant but he was  

absolutely terrified to be  addressed by a ghost. So,  

he carefully took his friend off his shoulders  and threw him on the ground and cried out

"Take him, take him! Only spare me,  spare me!" and with that, he ran.

Now, his friend, in mortal fear for his  life suddenly discovered that he did have  

some use of his legs. So he started to crawl  away as quickly as he could. Well, from where  

the miller was, he could see a figure in black  shouting and something on all fours moving away,  

so he thought the blacksmith must have been  caught in the act by the constable and he was now  

crying out 'spare me, spare me...only take him'  referring to the miller, trying to get the miller  

to take the blame. Well the miller was  having none of it. He took up his sack  

of walnuts and by a fairly circuitous back  route he made his way back to the mill.

The sexton ran all the way to the  priest's house. He hammered on the door.

"Oh Father, thank goodness" he cried, "you  must come with me as quickly as possible,  

something terrible has happened. That man that we  buried this morning, the farmer who loved walnuts,  

his ghost has come back and is sat in the  porch of the church with his bag of walnuts  

and is crying out that he's going to take  us off to hell and eat us and roast us!"

At first the priest refused to believe the  sexton, but the sexton was clearly terrified.  

So the priest got his bag and put into his bag his  crucifix, a vial of holy water, his prayer book,  

and then he put on his white stoll and made his  way with the sexton back up towards the church.

So the blacksmith had come back. He looked  up at the church porch, he couldn't see  

the miller there, but when he got closer  and had a look around he could see all  

over the floor there were fragments of walnut  shell so clearly the miller had been there.

'Ah' the blacksmith thought, 'the miller  

must have got bored with waiting and he's  gone back to the mill to stoke up a good fire  

for when we roast [grunt] this great big fat  sheep that I've been carrying on my back'.

Well, the blacksmith set off down the path from  the church porch back down towards the gate.  

Looking out into the darkness, he could see  figures moving around. As he got to the gate, the  

sheep on his back suddenly wriggled and struggled  in trying to get free. So the blacksmith cried out

"Oh no you don't, my friend. You're not getting  away. You're coming with me for the fire!"

Well, when the priest and the sexton who  were lurking in the shadows heard that,  

the priest assumed in the darkness that what he  was looking at was the devil carrying the ghost  

of the poor farmer who loved walnuts who had died,  and dragging him off to hell. So the priest ran.

Well, when the sexton saw the  priest run, naturally he ran too.  

So the blacksmith looking out into the darkness  saw a figure in white running, and then a dark  

figure running along behind. 'Ah' thought the  blacksmith, 'that must be the miller, but it  

looks like he's being pursued by the constable.  I better follow on to see what's going on.'

And so the blacksmith set off down the  street through the village towards the  

mill, the same direction in which the priest  and the sexton were running in their terror.  

When they saw behind them the dark figure with  something white on its back following them,  

they threw themselves into a deep,  dark, stinking ditch and tried to hide.

Now the ditch just happened  to be right next to the mill.  

So the blacksmith walked down the street  until he got to the door of the mill,  

he hammered on the door and cried out

"I have him! A good fat one.  He'll make excellent eating.  

I have the strength to go back  for more. Will you join me?"

When the priest and the sexton  heard that, they thought the devil  

was out on the hunt for more souls and  they were both terrified. The priest  

tried to get up out of the ditch to run away  but as he did, he fell backwards and his head  

struck the bottom of the ditch and got covered in  filth and he got stuck. So he started screaming

"Help! Help! Bring a rope! Bring a rope!"

When the blacksmith heard somebody crying out for  help and 'bring a rope', he thought to himself

'That must be the constable. Perhaps  he's already apprehended the miller and  

now I'm here he's calling for a rope  so that he can hang the pair of us.'

Well, with that, the blacksmith very  quickly took the sheep from his back  

and undid the cord from around its legs, and  the blacksmith ran. The sexton ran as well.  

The priest dragged himself out of the mire in  which he was stuck and he ran. And the miller,  

hearing all this commotion outside, peered out  through the window, saw all these figures running  

around, so he went to the back door... he ran  as well, leaving behind a rather confused sheep.

The miller and the blacksmith? Never seen again.

And that's my story. And the moral of  the story is, because all stories I  

suppose should have some sort of a moral,  is that ... when you are out and about  

of an evening, and you see something in  the dark and you're not sure what it is

Stop. Take a deep breath, for it is a fool who  believes their imagination in the darkness.

Right, I better crack on with this.

Have a good day.