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A long time ago in a far off world,
Where clouds of a different color swirled,
Lived the Bagfill Folk whose name it derives
From the way they tended to live their lives.

Each child when they became of age
Was taken aside by a self-styled sage
And given a bag made of magic and silk.
You never have seen a bag of this ilk.

'Take this bag,' the sage would say.
'You must take it everywhere, every day
'And collect pretty things and put them therein.
'To abstain from this task is a mortal sin.'

'And one day, I cannot tell you the date
'It might be soon or it might be late
'The bag will be full and on that day
'Your happiness ever more will stay.'

So out they would set, with their bags in hand,
Making their way through this far off land,
Doing their best to fill up their sacks
With treasures and trinkets and other nik naks.

But no matter how many prizes they got,
(Some got a few and some got a lot),
The bags never seemed to get any fuller
And the searching began to get duller and duller.

'What is the point?' they began to ask.
'Why are we doing this thankless task?'
Then the sages would come and make them feel small
For daring to question the point of it all.

One day there appeared (we’re not sure from where)
A man who the fear merchants just could not scare
He strode through the land with his head held high,
Giving and helping without asking why.

The sages tried every trick in the book
To make others think that this man was a crook,
But to those who had met him, it soon became clear
That his motives were pure and his actions sincere.

They followed and asked him why he was not scared
And from where he was getting the things that he shared
'It’s simple,' he said, 'needs no thinking about,
'I just took my bag and turned it inside out.'


Pete is the father of Erin and Lottie, a part-time juggler and a bit of a poser when it comes to photographs. He was recently described by a close friend as 'the third best thing since sliced bread'.

Peter is also the webmaster of a very fun and uplifting website called The Happy Cow.

 

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