The man who lived with a turnip

A church record from rural France in the eighteenth century describes the strange case of an old farmer who never took a wife but who lived with a turnip. The turnip was a normal root vegetable except that it was unusually large. The old man said that the turnip was better than a woman because it never complained. The priest couldn’t dissuade him. Over the years the turnip had become hard and dry, but the old man said he didn’t mind since he’d become hard and dry as well.