Latverian Folktales

The Repentant Thief

Once upon a time there was a handsy....thief. He would heartily borrow other peoples' things and not give them back. He wasn't very popular with his family or friends, but he was very popular with the authorities. One day after pretending to take one too many of his neighbors goats on a well-deserved vacation, his hand was on the chopping block.

"I was framed!" He cried. "Racism!" The Village Priest slapped him.

"Why can't he be kind and take that chicken?" Mumbled a childless woman in the crowd. She had made a pie.

I promise to steal no more!" He claimed.

"Do you?" Asked the Priest.

"Yes, I swear, please let me keep my hand!"

The Priest let him go and proclaimed that as long as he kept this sacred vow, he would be free. The crowd moaned in disappointment and began to place bets.

So the former thief began to look for a job, any job. But no one would hire him. He could go grow magic plants in the forest, but he was a good person now. Maybe God could help him, so he went to the Priest.

"Oh Father," he moaned, "will you pray for me?"

"No." He slid the Priest a Franc. "Oh my poor child, what ails your soul?"

"No one will give me a chance and I am tempted to go back to my old way of life."

"My poor child, I have a job for you, I misplaced something at the blacksmiths house."

"What is it?"

"It's a pair of his hot wife's undergarments."

"Father! That is stealing!"

"Daddy had needs, can you get them for me?"

"How much?" So the Thief went to the blacksmiths house to retrieve female undergarments for the Priest.

"Ah!"

"I was not-"

"You are stealing again!" The hot wife would report him.

"Just give me an undergarment of yours to...relocate to the Priest for..."

"It is for the church? Why didn't you just say that!" She gladly gave him a pair of her sexiest underpants. "What is God's plan for them?"

"He is going to touch them, and himself, with...."

"I will have many sons!" The Thief gave the Priest the undergarments.

"Oh kind thief, thank you for this, I will-"

"Uh huh."

"I will tell all my friends that you are back in business!"

"Don't...ehh..." It was work. Soon everyone was calling him to "plunder" here, or bless them with someone else's property, or donate...the church was his best customer but surprisingly a lot of rich people hired him. "Providing" them with goods saved them a lot of money.

But sometimes the poor would ask him to "give" some bread to them from the baker, or surprise them with presents, it was not just daddy who had needs. The Thief did jobs for them for free, it was great practice. He was "paying it forward".

Business was booming so much that he got competition and everyone was "borrowing" and "liberating" things from each other. But the Thief who used to be an ex-thief was still the best, which made all the other thieves very jealous.

"Why should he get all the glory?" They grumbled, "you can't just give up your job and ask for it back from God. However, when the village began to be raided because of a war that ahd sprung up next door, there was no time for grumbling.