A Cruel Bishop : Kids Story To Read Online In English

 A Cruel Bishop Kids Story To Read Online In English

 In Germany there lived a cruel bishop called Hatto. He was very rich but he was not a good man.  Good bishops love God and serve the poor. But Hatto was a man who hated the poor for their poverty.He hoarded all the food and gold that he could get and he was very proud of the wealth that he had.

There are many stories that tell us about the cruelty of the bishop. But the best known among them is the one which tell us about his death.

    Once there was a great famine in Germany. Hundreds of poor people died. Even the rich did not get enough food. Hatto whose barns were full of corn, did not give any of it to the starving people. Instead he sold his corn at very high prices. He did not even care for the children who were crying for food in the streets of his town.

One day a crowd of starving men, women and children went to the bishop's palace and begged him to give them some corn. Hatto smiled at them and said, "Let all those who want food gather together in my big barn which is outside the city. In that barn, I have enough corn for all of you. You can collect as much corn as you need. I have decided not to let you suffer from hunger any longer." The people were very happy to hear this. They never thought that the bishop could be so kind. The bishop's barn was a large building. The hungry people rushed towards it and crowded round it. They waited eagerly for the bishop for a long time. At last the bishop came. They all greeted him.

The bishop said "Enter the barn and take the corn." The people rushed into the building to gather all the corn they could get. But to their utmost surprise, they did not see a grain of corn there. They got very much disappointed. The moment they were all in, Hatto ordered his men to shut the door and set the building on fire. Hatto's men obeyed his cruel order. Men, women and children shrieked, screamed and howled in fear and pain. They prayed to the bishop to open the door, but the bishop said cruelly. "You will not suffer any more from hunger." He then turned to his men and said, "These are the rats that eat up our corn. So let them die." The heartless bishop left them to burn to death and returned to his palace.

In the middle of that night, the bishop heard screams and shrieks and woke up. He looked out through the Windows. The sight that he saw shocked him. Large crowds of rats were rushing towards his house. They came from all directions. They entered every room. In a few moments they ate up every thing that was in the house. Then they began to run towards the bishop. He shouted and called his servants but they could not stop the rats. They were like an army in a war. The bishop ran out of his house. He crossed the river Rhine and climbed up the top of the tower that stood on a hill on the bank of the river. He thought that the rats can't cross the river and those that try to cross will drown. Those that swim across will not be able to make holes in these thick walls which are made of the hardest stones. But Hatto was wrong. He woke up the next morning and found the tower full of rats. He looked out. The rats were everywhere in the river and on the hills.     The next moment they were all over him. The next day when his servants came to look for him, they did not see even his bones in the tower. That was the end of Bishop Hatto.