Here is my latest illustration from my personal fairy tales project. The story is Lazy Jack by Joseph Jacobs. It is a humorous tale about a particularly lazy boy who sits around at home all day doing very little. As expected his mother gets tired of his behaviour and sets him up with a job at the neighbour's farm.
The next day the boy goes and does the hardest day's work he has ever done and gets given some money in payment. Not being the sharpest lad, he carries the money in his hands and looses it on the way home. His mother (pretty angry I imagine!) suggests that he should have put it in his pocket. The next day he gets works at the local dairy and when he is paid in milk, he remembers his mums sound advice and pours it into his pocket and so it goes on. He puts a carries a cat on his head and pulls a shoulder of lamb along by some string until he ends with him carrying a donkey on his back. In doing so he makes a mute rich girl laugh, they marry and live happily ever after.
Laziness and stupidity clearly pay off.
