the automatic prayer
larry blazek
In a far land, the monks would spin the prayer wheels. A well-to-do farmer would be able to purchase a spin or two with a copper coin. Retainers and householders gave a silver penny for a hundred or so blessings. A gold coin from a wealthy noble would buy a thousand blessings. The king kept the apprentice monks hefty and muscular, ceaselessly bestowing endless millions of suplications to the gods, who, if the ever existed, were surely bored to death or deafened by the endless patter of pious suggestions.
Twenty sailors were washed up upon the shore when their rotted galley broke up in a heavy sea. They had a single brass coin with a holt in it that was suspended from a string from a boy's neck and a scrap of sailcloth among them. The shivering, weary men huddled in the leeward side of a rock and discussed what they should do.
They went to the hills where the monestary was and sent the lad inside to puchase a blessing. The priests tossed him and his coin into a dung heap.
A group of knights noticed the boy. They patted his shoulder and gave him a staff. Then the drew their swords and baited him to death.
The naked sailors saw what was going on and tried to rescue the boy with improvised weapons; alas, the boy perished and the sailors were enslaved upon the benches of yet another rotting galley.
So the sailors learned a valuable lesson; the gods listen, but not to brass farthings.
