Hedley Kow is an English folktale recorded by Joseph Jacobs in 1894.
There was once an old woman, who earned a poor living by going errands and such like, for the farmers' wives round about the village where she lived. It wasn't much she earned by it; but with a plate of meat at one house, and a cup of tea at another, she made shift to get on somehow, and always looked as cheerful as if she hadn't a want in the world.
Well, one summer evening as she was trotting away homewards she came upon a big black pot lying at the side of the road.
"Now that" said she, stopping to look at it, "would be just the very thing for me if I had anything to put into it! But who can have left it here?" and she looked round about, as if the person it belonged to must be not far off. But she could see no one.
"Maybe it'll have a hole in it," she said thoughtfully:—
"Ay, that'll be how they've left it lying, hinny. But then it'd do fine to put a flower
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