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“It is possible you will learn a truth here, though I doubt it. The amoral fable suits my tongue rather better than the moral kind. Attend then, unclouded fellow.
    “The region of which I speak is a dreary place in Gwent, by the borders of the River Severn. And there is no quiet there, nor silence. The waters have a saffron and sickly hue; and they do a fair bit of palpitating beneath the red eye of the sun...”
    The blue dwarf sighed: “Bugger!”

    Actually, I exchanged my trousers for a clock and a carrot, and lost my soul as I was doing so. Do you know Monmouth? 
    The market there is notorious for pickpockets; I knew this before I set out, yet took no precautions. I was intent on driving a hard bargain for my trousers. The imps who run the stalls are good at offering low prices for any items that come their way. They can talk the meanest miser into parting with his silver for a length of old rope. It is essential to be on your guard at all times.
    Nor are they too particular about where their goods come from. I suspect the clock I received fell off the back of a steeple, and the carrot had been uprooted from an allotment. But I was desperate; and the imps and their customers are protected by the market-overt law. This states that goods sold at such markets, whether stolen or not, cannot be returned to the original owner (with the clock came an irate pastor).
    Anyway, after I had spent an hour or so talking the stall-owner into giving me the clock and carrot, and had divested myself of my baggy britches, I made my way back to my house. Halfway home, I realised that my soul was missing. Nimble fingers had filched it. Doubtless it could now be found on a soul stall. But I had nothing on me with which to barter it back. I decided it would keep until the following morning, when I would return with an umbrella and a parrot.
    In my kitchen, I made a thin soup with the carrot and set the clock above my hearth (the pastor grumbled about the fire and claimed it was singeing his heels.) At last there was a knock on the door and Myfanwy stood on the threshold. I invited her in, showed her the clock, poured the soup and gazed into her large brown eyes. The combination of broth and timepiece so impressed her she consented to marry me at once—the effect I had been aiming for. “Hurrah!” cried I.
    We finished the meal and listened to the clock striking the hour. She suggested we go out for a walk. I declined, of course—I had no trousers. I made some excuse about wishing to stay at the table to hear the clock strike another hour. She thought this an excellent idea and suggested we pass the time by playing dice with our souls. Again I made my excuses; I told her my soul had caught a cold and had to be kept inside. She saw through this deception at once.
    “And to think I nearly kissed a man without a soul!” she growled. She stood up to leave and I rushed to restrain her. She glanced down at my bare legs. “What’s more, without trousers too!” she added. It was all I could do not to fall on the floor and burst into tears. I fell into an easy chair and burst into tears instead.
    Myfanwy had left me, and my efforts at seducing her with pendulum and root-vegetable had come to nothing. She was the greatest baker of blueberry pie in the region and men of all kinds came flocking to her oven; she could afford to be choosy. She had picked off the crust of my amorous overtures to expose the lack of filling beneath. I had lost her for good. Let this be a lesson to all young lovers, especially in these days, when inflation and curry has pushed up the price of both trousers and souls. Wear the former and ’ware the latter.
    The following morning, I took my umbrella and parrot to the market in an effort to retrieve my soul. But it had been sold. I was much put out by this. The imp who owned the stall offered to do me a very nice soul in maroon-and-black, but there is nothing quite like having your own. It fits you like a favourite