The Fruitcake of Hallowmere

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The story

A dry English vicar at Hallowmere is given a fruitcake from the village bake sale, and the storyteller explains how it has been passed around the parish for a century because no one dares eat it. The vicar cuts a slice, and it proves to contain the parish's lost sense of humour.

How it begins

Hallowmere is a village so small that it has only one road, one pub, and one church, and the church has only one vicar. In the winter of the year in question, that vicar was the Reverend Augustus Pennywhistle, a tall, thin, dry man who had never in his life laughed at anything, and who regarded jokes in much the same way he regarded damp in the vestry. He did not object to them. He simply thought they were not his business. It was December, and the snow had come down in the night, soft and silent, so that the lych-gate wore a white hat and the church bells sounded…