The Mouldy Penny

The Mouldy Penny

Long ago in the Netherlands, coins were not at all like they are now. Some pennies were made of silver, and they shone in the palm like tiny pieces of moonlight.

People were only beginning to grow used to money. Before that, they traded one thing for another: fish for iron, salt for fur, cloth for grain. But now shops, workshops, and markets were appearing in towns, where one round coin could buy dozens of different things.

Almost at once, people discovered something strange.

A coin can be spent.

A coin can be saved.

A coin can help someone else.

And a person can stare at a coin for so long that they forget what it is for.

Beneath the ground, little Dutch spirits called kabouters watched all this from cozy underground passages near tree roots and old foundations.

Kabouters were different from one another. Some loved helping people. Others adored jokes. And some waited only for a person to do something foolish, so that they could nudge them toward an even bigger mistake.

One evening, a great council of kabouters gathered in an underground hall.

In the middle stood a round table with a single silver coin upon it.

“Look,” said the eldest kabouter. “People believe that this small round piece can make them happy.”

“Can it?” asked a very young kabouter.

“Not by itself,” the elder replied. “But it is very interesting to see what people do with it.”

Then he told the story of three brothers.

On the very same day, each brother earned his first silver penny.

The eldest was named Vrek. He picked up his coin between two fingers, held it to the light, and whispered, “Mine.”

He put it in a little purse.

The next day he earned another.

“Mine.”

Then a third.

“Mine too.”

Very soon, Vrek became afraid to spend anything at all.

When his wife asked to buy a new bowl instead of a cracked one, he said, “The old one is still holding together.”

When a window leaked, he said, “We will put a bucket under it.”

When the neighbor’s child was collecting money for warm mittens, he said, “Let someone else help.”

The coins grew more numerous, and the joy in the house grew smaller.

At night, Vrek took out his purse and counted his money.

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

A mischievous kabouter heard the sound and said, “If a person loves coins more than people, we should see whether he notices the difference when one coin disappears.”

That night, the kabouter came down the chimney, found Vrek’s first silver penny, and hid it in a crack in an old boat by the quay.

In the morning, Vrek turned the whole house upside down.

“Where is my first coin?”

He looked in pots, in shoes, beneath the bed, and even in the basket of onions.

But he did not find the penny.

And instead of asking why one coin had become more important to him than the peace of his whole family, Vrek locked the rest of his money even more tightly in a chest.

The second brother was named Erlik. He did not rush to spend his first penny either.

“Let it lie there,” he said. “Perhaps tomorrow it will be more needed than it is today.”

But the next day, when he saw an old neighbor who had no bread, he took another coin and helped her.

When the roof needed repair, he paid the craftsperson.

When a baby was born, he bought a warm blanket.

And he regularly put part of what he earned into a small jar.

“For the future,” he explained.

“So you hide money too?” his wife asked.

“No. I give it work to do.”

“What work?”

“Some coins must keep us safe on a difficult day. Others must work today. And some must do good for someone else.”

A kind kabouter who heard these words was delighted.

That night, he sent Erlik an unusual dream.

Erlik saw a small silver penny rolling down a road.

First, the coin became a book for a child.

Then it became a bowl of hot soup.

Then it became a board in the wall of a new home.

Then it became a bed in a large, bright room where children who needed caring adults lived.

“Money should not lie without purpose,” said the kabouter in the dream. “But it does not have to vanish in a single day either. A good coin knows three roads: save, use, share.”

Erlik woke and remembered the dream.

The third brother was called Spendall in the village, because his money never stayed in his pocket.

As soon as he received his first penny, he thought, “I must spend it! What else is it for?”

He bought sweets, though there was already pie at home.

He saw a shiny trinket and bought that too.

Then another one.

By evening the coin was gone.

The next week, the same thing happened.

“We ought to mend the shoes,” his wife reminded him.

“Next time.”

“The flour in the pantry is running out.”

“We will buy some later.”

But later always lost to the bright new thing Spendall saw right then.

On one market day, he spent everything before noon. Then he saw a wooden horse that his child dearly wanted.

Spendall reached into one pocket.

Empty.

He tried the other.

Empty too.

And for the first time, he did not feel cheerful.

He returned home without the horse and sat by the door for a long time.

“I thought spending was happiness,” he said.

“Sometimes it is,” his wife replied. “But if you spend everything on the first whim, there may be nothing left for true happiness.”

The next morning, Spendall took three little jars.

On the first he wrote: “Needed.”

On the second: “Later.”

On the third: “Joy.”

“And a fourth?” asked his child.

Spendall thought for a moment and brought another jar.

On it he wrote: “To Share.”

The kabouters, peeking from beneath the floor, whispered, “Now that is more interesting.”

Years passed.

Vrek still guarded everything too tightly. His chest grew heavier, and he grew more anxious. At last, one day he realized that he could not remember a single good story about his money. Not one coin had become a gift, a repair, help, or a celebration.

Then, for the first time, he opened the chest in daylight instead of at night.

“We will mend the window,” he told his wife. “And buy a new bowl.”

She was so surprised that she nearly dropped the old one.

Then Vrek took several coins to a craftsperson and several more to a family that needed help.

The chest became lighter, but it seemed as though there was more air in the house.

Spendall changed too. He did not stop loving markets and gifts, but now he knew that when every penny has its own road, a person can enjoy today and not fear tomorrow.

And Erlik continued to set aside part of what he earned and help others. In his notes, he left a wish that one day the saved money should build a home for children who needed care, food, learning, and a safe place to sleep.

A great many years went by.

Old wooden boats disappeared. Rivers changed their courses. Cities grew where small settlements had once stood.

One day, workers digging a canal came upon blackened boards from an ancient boat.

In a thick crack in the wood, they found an old leather purse.

And inside it, a silver penny.

The coin was dark, covered with greenish tarnish, and barely shone at all.

“A mouldy penny!” laughed the children who came to see the find in a museum.

The old curator smiled.

“Perhaps. But something else is more interesting: this coin lay useless for hundreds of years. Yet the coins people spent wisely, kept for what was needed, and gave to good causes had long ago become roofs, books, bread, workshops, schools, and warm rooms.”

A boy standing by the display tilted his head.

“So the best coin is not the one that lies the longest?”

“And not the one that disappears the fastest,” replied the curator. “The best coin is the one to which you gave good work.”

It is said that beneath the museum floor, the kabouters heard these words and nodded with satisfaction.

For even they had learned one simple thing over many centuries: money is only a small tool. Wisdom begins when a person decides what to do with it.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨