The Bad Man...

Taken from Neil Gaiman's Sandman story "The Kindly Ones".

There was once a serial fornicator... He sees a lass bathing and steals her clothes. She agrees to be his love so long as he marries her in the first church they pass on the way back to town.
He promises that worms may eat him (they will anyway) and may their children fly away if he lies (which he couldn't care less if they did).

They pass two churches and she gets the drift. She's about to give birth, so he kills an old lady, sticks her under the midden and steals her cottage claiming it was left him by his Aunt.

He's off in a couple of weeks back to his old ways.

There is land at the cottage, they have a kitchen garden and don't starve because the Bad Man, their father brings the occaisional pig or duck home too.

One day he comes home with a swan home to his wife, but no children, who are by now the apples of his eyes. "Where are they?", "Flown away" she says. He gets more aggressive until he chops her up with the cleaver he was going to use on the swan he'd killed.

The children who have sprouted wings, fly back and ask for their mother - "She's flown away", "What's all this blood then?" They see her hand poking out from under the bed, fall on him and tear him apart.

He makes sure he is dead and looks for somewhere to hide, knowing the devil will be coming for him. He hides under the midden where the old lady binds him fast with her bony hands until his wife, now a worm with razor sharp, teeth circles his body and devours his soul piece by piece.

It's a happy little tale.