The Crafty Farmer

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The Crafty Farmer is Child ballad 283, existing in several variants.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A farmer is travelling with a sum of money -- sometimes because he must pay his rent for a long period of time, sometimes because he has sold a cow -- when he falls in with a highwayman. He either admits to the money, or the highwayman has overheard where he keeps it. The highwayman demands it. The farmer throws the money (in saddlebags or sewed in coat) off the road. The highwayman goes after it, and the farmer steals his horse. There is much more money in the saddlebags than he was carrying.

Spoilers end here.

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