Evans Bach loved his meals; one look at him told you as much. Locals joked that you wouldn’t get many of him to the ton. He was also a keen gardener, so he grew all sorts of vegetables. His cabbages were amongst the biggest, his carrots amongst the longest, his potatoes amongst the tastiest and his beans amongst the greenest. But most of all he treasured his leek. Of all the vegetables in his garden he tended his leeks the most. Every day he watered them, or weeded them or manured them. Everyone in the village said Evans Bach’s leeks were the finest they’d seen, though Evans rarely let anyone else have a taste of his leeks. He liked them too much for that.

One morning, after breakfast which on this day was a leek omelette, he went out into the garden, filled his watering can and went to water his leeks. He would always tend to them first. Imagine his surprise when he saw that the middle leek of the front row of leeks was shining brightly in the sunshine. Shining a rich golden colour. He put down his watering can and went to have a closer look at it. This leek was no longer green; it was golden all over. It shone. It glistened. He touched it. It didn’t bend like a vegetable. It was stiff and unbending. It felt smooth and metallic. Evans pulled it out of the ground and it was heavy. It weighed several pounds. He scratched it with his penknife and the metal was soft, but it was still golden underneath. Evans had got a golden leek. A leek made out of gold! He would be rich! He couldn’t imagine how much this leek would be worth.

What should he do with his riches? He took the golden leek back to his kitchen and weighed it. Nearly three pounds it weighed. Evans didn’t know how much gold was worth, but this would be worth more than he could earn in a lifetime. He could buy a big house and have servants. He could buy a posh car and drive around showing off to everybody. First things first he decided. I’m going to have a meal of all those things he couldn’t afford before. He had some savings. In fact he had been saving money all his life and had quite a lot now he came to add it all up. He would spend the lot on champagne and caviar and other fancy foods. After all this is what he would be eating and drinking from now on. So he took his savings from the box he kept under the floorboards and set off into town with two big shopping bags. He would have a really big meal.

That evening he has laid out all the fine foods he had bought on his kitchen table. The champagne bottle had been popped; he had some really fine bread and the best honey he could find. There were meats and pickles and fruit from foreign places. Now he knew what caviar looked like he wasn’t so sure he could eat it for every meal, but he would try it this once. He’d been amazed when in the town grocery shop and he had said that money was no object, at the all the fine foods they had found for him. Some were fresh and carefully wrapped for him, some in jars and some in tins. He couldn’t pronounce some of the names. But now there they were on his kitchen table. And there in the middle of the table was his golden leek, standing in a little vase at the centre of the table. He loaded his plate with some of everything, sat down, tucked in his napkin, picked up his knife and fork, opened his mouth and ..... found that he couldn’t. He tried to move his jaw and nothing happened. He tried to put his finger in his mouth and couldn’t. He tried to pull his mouth open and couldn’t. He got out of his chair in a panic and ran to the mirror in his hallway. He looked at his reflection and saw that he no longer had a mouth. He had no lips either. His skin was continuous from the bottom of his nose to the tip of his chin. He tried to talk but it sounded all muffled. He realised then that he had neither teeth nor a tongue.

Evans sat down back at the table, and had never been so glum in his entire life. Having no mouth meant he couldn’t talk, but that wasn’t too much of a problem. He never said much anyway. He was glum because he had all that food and couldn’t eat it. He sat there and sat there all evening, and eventually dropped off to sleep thinking that he would wake up in the morning and his mouth would be there. Well, he did wake up in the morning, but still he had no mouth. The glass of champagne no longer had any bubbles in it, the meats on his plate looked a bit dry, a couple of flies were walking across the fruit, and that caviar was still a bit fishy smelling. Evans decided he would sit in that chair, awake or asleep, until his mouth came back. Simple as that. So day after day, night after night, he sat in that chair. Day after day the food dried up or started to crumble, was covered in flies and everything began to smell a bit. Some things oozed and others curled up. No-one was enjoying that food except for the flies. And all the time Evans was getting thinner and thinner, but he didn’t realise this himself. He just sat there and sat there. And as you might expect eventually he just died there, from starvation.

It was then that his back door slowly opened and a hideous gnome creeps in, climbs up onto the table and takes the golden leek. The very next day Mrs Tittle-Tattle finds the golden leek on her dining room table. That wasn’t her real name of course, but that’s what everybody in town called her, because she always had all the gossip about everybody and always made sure that any rumours were soon known by all her friends. Mrs Tittle-Tattle looked at the leek and though she was surprised, she knew at once that it was made of gold and would be worth a lot of money. Straightaway she knew that if she had that kind of money she could mix with the richer people in the town, and get even more gossip. And those rich people probably did a lot of things she could gossip about. She put on her coat, the one she always wore to go into town, and set off down the road. She soon met Mrs Davies, one of her friends and started to tell her about all the comings and goings at the house across the road from her. When she had finished, and Mrs Davies had gone on her way Mrs Tittle-Tattle suddenly realised that all she had just said wasn’t true. She had made it up on the spot. Mrs Tittle-Tattle then met Mrs Price , neighbour but one, and started telling her about some awful things that Mrs Davies had done. When Mrs Price had gone her way Mrs Tittle-Tattle realised again that what she had said was totally untrue. And so it went on all morning. Everyone she met she spoke to, and told some terrible stories about the other people. Eventually Mrs Tittle-Tattle decided she must go home and make herself a cup of tea and calm down. Next day she would go out again and tell her friends that she was mistaken and to forget what she had said

So next morning she set off into town again. But every time she met one of her friends she forgot to say that what she said yesterday was a mistake. Instead she told everybody about all the bad things she had done. Like how the winning cake she had baked for a competition was actually bought from a shop, how at the local vegetable show her broad beans which won first prize were picked from someone else’s garden, And worst of all, the story about the new young vicar last year, that meant he had to move on to another parish was untrue. That was made up because she didn’t like him after he told her off for gossiping. Yet again she realised that she couldn’t control what she was saying, and hurried back home to have another cup of tea while she decided what to do. It was then that she heard all the voices. She peeped out from behind her lace curtains; something she was very good at. They were coming down the road were her friends and they looked very angry. Not only her friends, but also many of the townspeople too. And they all looked angry. All of a sudden she realised that whatever she tried to say would come out all different and make things worse. She wouldn’t have a friend left in the village, and none of the shopkeepers would serve her ever again.

The angry crowd arrived at her house, and marched up the path. There were so many of them that they filled the entire front garden. All the flowers that Mrs Tittle-Tattle had tended were tramped, and the lawn she so carefully tended was full of heel prints. The banged heavily on Mrs Tittle-Tattle’s front door, but no-one answered. The banged again, louder and still no-one came. The banged even harder and the door gave way. The angry crowd went into Mrs Tittle-Tattle’s house, but there was no-one there. Mrs Tittle-Tattle had realised that the only thing she could do was to leave now by the back door and catch to train to go to live with her sister in Colwyn Bay ... forevermore. So what became of the golden leek? Mrs Tittle-Tattle left so fast she even forgot about that. But between her leaving and the angry crowd bursting in, a hideous gnome had crept in and taken the golden leek.

Sioned was one of the prettiest girls in town. She may have been the prettiest even, and she knew it. She hoped that she would be able to the best young man in town and hoped that she could have her choice of all of them at the Saturday night dance. All the young men and women of the town would be there. It was Wednesday and she woke up to find the golden leek on her pillow next to her head. What’s this she thought. A present for me? She knew it would be worth a considerable amount of money, and planning ahead to Saturday, which was the most important thing in her life, she realised that she could borrow some money on the strength of the golden leek, and make herself even more beautiful for Saturday’s dance. She set of down town to buy some new clothes, all the latest fashions.

In the clothes shop she showed the golden leek to Mr Dyfi, the owner, and said “I will be able to pay you when I have sold the golden leek for a lot of money, but for now looking good on Saturday night is more important”. Mr Dyfi agreed and she took home all the latest fashions so she could chose which to wear on Saturday. On Thursday she went to buy some make-up for Saturday night and showed the golden leek to Morwenna who served her. “I will be able to pay you when I have sold the golden leek for a lot of money, but for now looking good on Saturday night is more important”. Morwenna let her take a selection of all the make-up she had in the shop. On Friday she went to the hairdressers and showed the golden leek to Raymonde who would be styling her hair. “I will be able to pay you when I have sold the golden leek for a lot of money, but for now looking good on Saturday night is more important”. Raymonde agreed and Sioned spent the morning having her hair styled ready for Saturday night.

Sioned spent most of Saturday getting ready to go to the dance. She tidied her hair a bit and tried on all the fashions to decide which to wear, and tried out all the make-up she had. She then spent an hour or more admiring herself in the mirror. “I certainly will have my pick of all the young men tonight.” She thought, “None of the other girls will stand a chance against me looking this good”. But truth be told, she didn’t look that good at all. In fact her hair was a mess. She had slept on it badly an it was now all straggly and unkempt. The make-up she had put on was over-done. Her lipstick was crooked and she looked more like a clown, apart from the absence of a red nose. And the clothes she was wearing just didn’t fit her well and all the colours clashed. But Sioned didn’t see this at all. She went to the dance, sat down and started to look at all the young men thinking “Very soon one will come and ask me for a dance”. But none did. She waited and waited, but still none of the young men asked he to dance. All the other girls had a dance and some were leaving with their young men. Sioned didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t just that none of the young men hadn’t asked her to dance, but it seemed that they were giving her odd looks and avoiding her.

When the dance was over and no-one had even spoken to her Sioned ran all the way home, crying. She had a look at herself in the mirror and then saw why no-one had asked her for a dance. She looked dreadful. She was unkempt. Her hair and make-up were a mess. Her clothes looked stupid. She ran straight up to her bedroom and stayed there for a week crying. Shed didn’t notice that the golden leek had disappeared. From then on Sioned rarely went out. She never bothered with make-up, and took to wearing the same old clothes everyday; plain, warm, sensible and comfortable clothes. She remained a spinster till the end of her days.

No-one noticed a gnome stealing softly through the village keeping to the night time shadows. And no-one saw him slip through an open window in Lloydi’s house, but in the morning Lloydi saw the golden Leek lying there in the morning. Everyone knew Lloydi wasn’t the most industrious labourer in the village. In fact he avoided work as well as he could, only doing any work when those he owed money to threatened him with the law. He inspected the leek and it certainly seemed to be made of pure gold. Lloydi saw this as a golden opportunity to not do lots of work.

He put the golden leek in his pocket and set off to the pub to celebrate his luck. The landlord of the Black Lion though, was not so happy to see Lloydi. “I’m not serving you, Lloydi” he said. “Not till you have paid your debts” he continued showing Lloydi the slate for all the beers Lloydi had had on credit for the last few months. Lloydi had no option but to show him the golden leek, and promise to pay his debts when he had sold the leek. Furthermore Lloydi said he would buy a round of drinks for anybody in the pub that day and would wipe the slate clean the very next day.

Reluctantly the landlord agreed, and was soon very busy pulling pints of beer and pouring drinks for everybody there. Now news like this didn’t stay long in the Black Lion. News that Lloydi was buying drinks soon spread to the The Dog and the Butchers Arms. And all the people there were owed money by Lloydi so soon there was a stream of people heading for the Black Lion. The news spread the greengrocers, the post office, the newsagents and the hardware shop. Everyone was owed money by Lloydi so they headed for The Lion too. Within a quarter of an hour virtually in the village was in the Black Lion and all the shops and other pubs were shut.

And Lloydi didn’t just owe money in his own village; he owed money in the next village, and the next village further the valley, and the village after that one. The was a line of people heading for the Black Lion all down the valley, on foot, on bicycles, in cars and tractors, and even three people trying to ride a tandem. The landlord of the Black Lion had to buy in barrels and bottles from the landlords of the Dog and the Butchers Arms, while his wife was busy noting down all the drinks being served ready to add to Lloydi’s slate. And of course everyone was going round for more drinks.

All good things come to an end though. PC Jones turned up and warned them not to continue serving later than the pub’s licence allowed. He was upset because he was on duty and couldn’t have a drink himself. It wouldn’t continue though, because all the barrels were running dry and all the bottles were empty. There were going to be a lot of sore heads in the village the next morning. Lloydi promised to sell his golden leek first thing next morning and wipe his slate clean. He staggered home, because he had had a good few drinks himself, and promptly fell asleep. So deep did he sleep that he didn’t see the hideous gnome creep in and take away the golden leek.

Next day he looked everywhere for the leek, but couldn’t see it anywhere. The landlord of the Lion knocked on his door offering to drive him into town to sell the golden leek and pay his debts. Lloydi explained he couldn’t find it, and so they searched everywhere with no luck. Well to cut a long story short, this was the last straw for Lloydi. He now owed so much money he had to sell his house to settle them all. He had to move back in with his old mother and was never short of work again. She made him do all the jobs, from washing up to sawing logs, to painting the fence, all the housework

So what happened to the golden leek? It had done its work in the village, But the next year there were rumours of a golden leek appearing mysteriously in a village at the other end of Wales. And these rumours pop up every few years or so. When will someone in your village find a golden leek one morning? Could it be you?