The Old Woman’s Cake

The Old Woman's Cake is a traditional Mordentish folktale involving a little old lady and her trouble with bakhna rakhna.

Text Extract

The little old woman was tired of this nonsense; she wanted to cook her leg of mutton and eat it herself, and leave her pie to cool on the windowsill while she went to market without coming back to find it eaten and the dish thrown in a corner when the ghost-goblins had finished their meal. She sat in her rocking-chair and thought and thought about it; and finally she had an idea.

That evening she came home from market with a good quantity of rat poison and a pound of sugar, and she made a most delicious sugar-cake which she placed with care in the center of her table. “Oh, how I hope the ghost-goblins do not eat my beautiful cake!” she exclaimed aloud.