What you've all been waiting for:
The Miser and the Faeries
Grindel was one of those most rare and irritating 
types: an impoverished miser. He lived alone 
in a ramshackle cottage at the edge of the 
forest where the purple mushrooms grow. He had 
only his chickens and his emaciated hound to 
keep him company, for he was not well liked by 
the people of the neighboring village. They 
believed that any man as miserly as Grindel 
must be as rich as a king, and they resented 
the fact that the old man gouged them 
mercilessly for the scrawny chickens which he 
brought to market twice a year.
It was immediately after one of these trips to 
market that Grindel encountered the faerie. 
The creature appeared to him in the guise of a 
decrepit beggar woman, clad in soiled rags and 
clutching a grimy sack.
"Please kind sir," the faerie petitioned. "Could 
you spare a copper half pence for an ancient 
beggar woman?"
Grindel scowled, and clutched his purse and the 
nine half pence it contained closer to his 
side. "I have no money to spare, woman." He 
made as if to walk on.
"Oh, please sir," the faerie whined. "My children 
starve. A single half pence is all I ask."
"I have none which I can spare, woman. Now let me 
be!" Grindel was nervous by disposition, 
particularly in matters of money, and it 
seemed passing strange to him that this woman 
should be begging on such a lonely and ill 
kept road as that which led to his house. He 
feared she might be a witch, or a robber in 
disguise, and he wanted no part of her. 
"I beg of you sir, can you spare anything for an 
old, widowed, half-blind beggar?" The faerie 
clasped its hands imploringly. "Please." 
"I have nothing to spare," Grindel repeated, and 
walked on. 
The faerie, having petitioned and been denied 
three times, as per the ancient tradition, 
disappeared. 
Grindel returned to his ramshackle house, where 
he secreted away his nine half pence behind a 
loose stone in the chimney, along with the 
three others he had managed to save over the 
past year. He shared a meal of boiled turnips 
with his half-starved dog, and lay down on his 
blanketless straw pallet, and stared at the 
stars where they shone through the hole in the 
roof. Eventually he slept. He felt no regret 
for denying the beggar woman her request, for 
it was truly something he could ill afford to 
grant. 
He never saw the tiny, gleaming eyes which stared 
in through the empty window frames and cracked 
walls, observing his impoverished condition. 
When Grindel woke the next morning, he found a 
sack of gold sitting on the hearth, and he 
knew by the tiny footprints in the dust that 
he had been visited by the faeries during the 
night. 
Now Grindel was not entirely unknowledgeable in 
the ways of the fair folk. He knew that faerie 
gifts -- especially faerie gold -- were 
generally cursed with a moral. He remembered 
his encounter with the beggar woman the day 
before, and suspected that his actions had 
been observed by the faeries. He also 
suspected that his reply to the beggar woman's 
plea was precisely the sort of response which 
faeries might frown upon. He did not trust the 
gold which had been left on the hearth in the 
dead of night, and he resolved to secret it 
away behind the loose stone in the chimney, 
and not to spend it until he had determined 
its nature. 
There Grindel put the gold, and there it stayed. 
He took it out and counted it every night, but 
he never spent it, for he knew that faerie 
gifts -- especially faerie gold -- were 
generally cursed with a moral. His house fell 
into further disrepair. His dog grew thinner. 
His supply of turnips dwindled. The holes in 
his roof gaped wide and wider. And Grindel 
grew older and more miserly, brooding alone 
over his gold, and pondering its probable 
curse. 
The villagers grew more and more resentful of 
Grindel and his miserly ways. When, at length, 
the old man came no more to the village 
market, the villagers traveled to his 
ramshackle house at the edge of the forest 
where the purple mushrooms grow. There they 
found the old man where he had died of hunger. 
He had long since eaten the last of his 
chickens and turnips, and spent the last of 
the twelve half pence which he had hoarded 
away. 
Behind the loose stone in the chimney the 
villagers found the sack of gold which the 
faeries had left for Grindel, and they 
marveled that the old man could be so miserly 
as to starve to death with such a fortune at 
his disposal. The villagers took the gold, and 
divided it amongst themselves, and prospered, 
and, for the most part, lived happily ever 
after. They never learned that the gold was a 
gift from the faeries, and, in any case, they 
did not know that faerie gifts -- especially 
faerie gold -- were generally cursed with a 
moral.