Welcome to another adventure from the Thousand Acre Woods deep within Trollheim of the NJ Pine Belt! Tales I, Jonathan Hulton, chronicle. Today I share the story when Angrboda tricked Karl into paying his tab.

 

“Mom, I need to get even with Karl again,” yells Angrboda as she busts in the house, dropping her firewood.

“What now?” Helgi answers without missing a stitch. “Why do you even bother with him still?” Mothers know that their children usually never learn until it is too late, but they can still hope with experience they will get over it.

 

“I sold him that cute dragon I hatched in the eagle’s nest from a gold coin.”

“Let me guess, you delivered it before he paid you?” her mother answered, smiling when she heard her favorite song played on her shell.

“He was going to pay me a hundred and twenty-five pounds of datura for my shamanic journeys; I didn’t want to lose that opportunity; the price was too”

“Too good to be true...” Helgi snickered while she kept stitching.

“Yes, but…”

“So you want to have me help to get your money back?”

“Yes...” Angrboda answered, chest fallen. She couldn’t believe she needed her mother again to get out of trouble.

 

Helgi and her daughter found Karl and Gramps above the Disappearing Pond in Trollheim. Karl and Gramps were helping Pop-Pops shape some pitch pines.

 

“Karl, Angroboda says you owe her for that dragon you have!” Helgi had her nose in his face.

“I owe her nothing; I got this dragon from Bjorn’s wealthy friend Olaf!”

Even though Gramps was best friends with Karl, he was placing himself behind Karl to be ready to ring his neck if he dared threaten his granddaughter and daughter-in-law. Pop-Pops swung into the air when Gramps let go of the rope he was helping him with.

“She says you owe her four hundred pounds of datura!”

“She lies!” yells back Karl as he throws his shoulder into Helgi.

 

Gramp lifts him. "I never said that much; it was a hundred and twenty-five pounds!" retorts Karl without thinking.

“You have proven us both liars, old crooked path, for she told me one hundred and twenty-five pounds,” Helgi says with a smile.

Gramps took Karl to his field, where he forced him to pay his granddaughter.

 

 

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