Every village has its own strange little stories. Some are about ghosts, others about old buildings that seem to hold bad luck. The one that stuck with me wasn’t about a haunting, but about a roof.
There used to be a big house in the village where I grew up. It had a beautiful thatched roof, the kind that made people stop and stare. The man who owned it was very wealthy and very proud of it. He cared for that roof as if it were alive.
Before he died, he told his children one thing: never change the roof.
No one knew why. Maybe it was just sentimentality, or maybe he believed the house’s luck was tied to it. But when he passed away, some of his fortune was missing. His children searched everywhere and found nothing. Eventually, they convinced themselves that their father must have hidden the money in the roof he loved so much.
So they destroyed it.
They pulled down the thatch, tore apart the beams, and searched every inch. There was nothing there. No treasure. No secret hoard. And soon after, tragedy struck the family. Each of the children, one after another, met some misfortune or early death.
Some people said it was coincidence. Others said it was a curse for their greed and for breaking their father’s last wish. Whatever it was, the house was never the same again.
I first heard this story from a teacher when we were on a school history walk through the village. It was a rainy day, the sort where your shoes fill with water and everything smells like wet earth. We stopped outside where the house once stood, and she told us the tale. I remember being cold, soaked through, and completely transfixed.
It’s funny what stories stay with you. That one never left my head. Maybe because it says something simple: some things are better left alone.
