Once upon a Time there was a family who lived deep in the woods.  Every day the father of the family would go out and chop wood and tend the animals and crops while his beautiful wife and three daughters would tend the house, bake bread and cook wholesome meals.

Then one day, in the depth of winter, when the nights were drawing in dark and cold and an icy wind blew from the East carrying the calls of Cossack hunting horns across the steppes to the deep forest, a stranger came.  He was a tall man in a long, ragged coat and he had the look of a vagrant.  His face was lean as if he had not eaten for days and his voice was weak and waning when he whispered

“I am a poor and lonely traveller, please let me stay in your home for one night”.

The Father hefted his great chopping axe and smashed it down on a block of wood, splitting it right in two.  He glared at the man through the growing gloom and thought.  Though his mother had taught him to grant hospitality to strangers who asked least they be left in the cold to freeze and starve, something about this fellow turned his skin and made him wary.  So, he turned him away, bidding the stranger to travel to the next farm.

The next night was as cold and frosty as before, and the first snows began to fall when the same stranger again appeared at their door, begging for hospitality.  But again the Father turned the poor, thin man away into the cold.

Then again, on the third night the stranger appeared again, though this time the Father was out hunting in the forest and the Father’s wife opened the door of their house to the stranger.

“I am a poor and lonely traveller, please let me stay in your home for one night”.

And her heart melted with pity when she saw how thin and scrawny and hungry he looked, so she opened their door and said

“Step inside, I can offer both”.

So, she showed the thin man inside and gave him a bowl of hot stew and sat him down before the fire.  When darkness began to fall the Father returned to the hose with a brace of rabbits beneath his arm.  He could smell sucking pig roasting and his stomach grumbled with hunger after his honest labours, but when he opened the door a horrific sight greeted his eyes.  The thin man crouched by the fire, slowly roasting the Father’s Wife and Babes over the roaring fire, cackling with insane laughter.  The Father dropped the rabbits and picked up his wood axe, chopping off the thin man’s head in one great sweep.  But all was lost and he was too late.  As the thin man’s head rolled to the floor it smashed into a pulpy mass and his body, which seemed nothing but ragged clothes stuffed with straw, fell to the floor.  The Father fell down dead with grief at what had happened.

His cottage still stands, deep in the woods, it’s door still open to strangers, and they say on a cold, wintery night, when the hunting horns of the Cossacks carry on the icy wind, the tempting smells of cooking come drifting from the cottage door, tempting in lonely travellers.

And that, my child, is why you should never trust a traveller, yet you should never turn away a stranger in need of hospitality, for the consequences are indeed grave.