* Slop! A welsh folktale by Margaret Read MacDonald *

      This is a fantastic traditional title because it is a folktale that is welsh in origins.  This story is about an old couple who have very little money.  After the old wife is done making their dinner of vegetables, she puts the waste into a compost pile and has her husband go out the front door and toss the compost bucket over the stone wall near their home.  He does this daily until one day a small little voice kindly asks him not too.  The man can not see him, but can hear him.  This was a very small little man who lived on the other side of the stone wall in a tiny little cottage with a tiny little wife.  He complains to the old man that he is having his house flooded with compost and he and his wife have to clean out their flooded food home.  The old man goes back to his wife and tells her about the little man, little wife and little cottage.  Him and his wife believe that the only way to keep from flooding the little cottage with compost is to put a back door in the house so they can throw the waste in the back, however they have very little money.  The wife confesses that she has saved a little and that it would be nice to put a back door in.  They do this and every time they open the backdoor and throw the waste back there the little people in the cottage toss a gold coin into the old couple.  There is a lesson hidden in this folktale about how to treat people the way you want to be treated, and also be good to thy neighbor.    This story is best suited for older children, 4th grade and beyond.  It is a very long story with many words and a lot of information that would be too difficult to explain to the younger aged children, and there is a lesson and theme in the end and an older school age would understand. 

genre: traditional
year: 1997
level: 4th and above
* this book was from the website.*