It’s Christmas Eve and we have no food in the house. I go to my rich brother’s house, and I ask him for a piece of bread or meat. He throws a ham at me and says, “You can have the whole ham if you promise to go straight to Dead Man’s Hall.”

I don’t why he says that, but straight away, I go.

The Poor Brother in Why the Sea is Salt, Blue Fairy Book. Painting by L.S. Lowry.