“If you don’t move out, I’ll tell the authorities you’ve been kidnapping children and cooking them into quiches!” Mister Bettelheim threatened.

“One doesn’t cook a quiche, one bakes a quiche,” replied his cannibal, a cultivated Spaniard named Héctor.

“I don’t care!” shouted Mister Bettelheim, going quite red in the face.

After some weeks of this, Héctor decided he couldn’t take it anymore. He offered Mister Bettelheim every penny he had left on earth if he would just sell Héctor his tongue.

Mister Bettelheim did not reject the offer out of hand. He gave it careful thought and consideration. Without his tongue, he’d no longer be able to complain or make threats against Héctor. But with the money Héctor was promising, he could build a second house on his property and live there, away from Héctor, and he’d no longer have anything to complain about. And who else in the village would have not one but two golden-domed marble houses?

Now, if Mister Bettelheim had asked Farmer Hayworth’s advice, his old friend would have told him not to take the cannibal’s deal. If the smell of Héctor’s cooking bothers you, come and live with me, Hayworth would have offered. I have more than enough room in my house. But Mister Bettelheim had shunned Farmer Hayworth, as had the rest of the village, so he didn’t ask—and even if he had, Bettelheim was too proud, and would rather live without a tongue than in Hayworth’s sad little house.

So Bettelheim went to Héctor and said, “Okay.”

Héctor drew his carving knife, which was always sheathed at his side. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Bettelheim said, and stuck out his tongue.

Héctor did the deed. He stuffed Bettelheim’s mouth with cotton to stop the bleeding. He carried the tongue into the kitchen, fried it in truffle oil with a pinch of salt, and ate it. Then he took all the money he’d promised Bettelheim, gave it to Bettelheim’s servants, and dismissed them. Limbless, tongueless, and very angry, Bettelheim grunted and wiggled around on the floor. Héctor picked him up, carried him outside, and tied him to a stake in a shady part of the back garden. He watered and fed Bettelheim twice a day, and like a fruiting vine Bettelheim grew limbs for Héctor to eat. Héctor felt a little bad about it, but not too bad. Eventually he married a nice cannibal girl and together they raised a cannibal family, all fed by the peculiar man in the back garden.

Such was the fate of all the villagers—all but Farmer Hayworth, who kept his limbs and lived in his little house and farmed his swamp like he always had. He didn’t bother his new neighbors, and they didn’t bother him. He had everything he needed, and so did they.

And they lived happily ever after.

The Fork-Tongued Princess

In the ancient kingdom of Frankenbourg there was a princess who had a peculiar secret: in her mouth hid a long, forked tongue and across her back lay shimmering, diamond-patterned scales. Because she had developed these serpentine characteristics during her teenage years and rarely opened her mouth for fear of being found out, she had been able to keep them secret from everyone but her handmaiden. Not even her father, the king, knew.