Kesten unbarred the door and six piglets ran out, followed by their mother. She peered into the house and saw the remaining piglets, unmoving, in the straw. They were dead. Sighing, she fetched a burlap sack, deciding to take the young pigs to the baker, who might buy them for his taddage pies. She walked through the village, accompanied by the raucous cawing of crows on rooftop and tree, as they watched her passage, their greedy eyes on the bag she carried.
“Screech your rough musick at me all you like, but you’ll not run me out of town,” she called to them. “Nor will you get your beaks in my wee piggies.”
On her return, she entered the cruck house and stood, dumbfounded. A stream of light came in through the window, lighting the table in the middle of the room. And on the table, illumi
