‘Anything will please me,’ said the Man; ‘bread and cheese is good enough.’ And his eyes falling on the Little Peasant, he said, ‘Come along and have some too.’
The Little Peasant did not wait for a second bidding, but got up at once, and they fell to.
The Miller noticed the hide on the floor in which the Raven was wrapped, and said, ‘What have you got there?’
‘I have a soothsayer there,’ answered the Little Peasant.
‘Can he prophesy something to me?’ asked the Miller.
‘Why not?’ answered the Little Peasant; ‘but he will only say four things, the fifth he keeps to himself.’
‘The Miller was Inquisitive, and said, ‘Let me hear one of his prophecies.’
The Little Peasant squeezed the Raven’s head and made him croak.
The Miller asked, ‘What did he say?’
The Little Peasant answered, ‘First he said that there was a bottle of wine under the pillow.’
‘That’s a bit of luck!’ said the Miller, going to the pillow and finding the wine. ‘What next?’
The Little Peasant made the Raven croak again, and said, ‘Secondly, he says there is a joint In the oven.’
‘That’s a bit of. luck!’ said the Miller, going to the oven and finding the joint.
The Little Peasant again squeezed the Raven to make him prophesy, and said, ‘Thirdly, he says there is some salad in the bed.’
‘That’s a bit of luck!’ said the Miller, finding the salad.
Again the Little Peasant squeezed the Raven to make him crook, and said, ‘Fourthly, he says there is a cake under the bed.’
‘That’s a bit of luck!’ cried the Miller, as he found the cake.
Now the two sat down at the table together; but the Miller’s Wife was in terror. She went to bed, and took, all the keys with her.
The Miller would have liked to know what the fifth prophecy could be, but the Little Peasant said, ‘We will quietly eat these four things first, the fifth is something dreadful.’
So they went on eating, and then they bargained as to how much the Miller should pay for the fifth prophecy, and at last they agreed upon three hundred thalers.
Then again the Little Peasant squeezed the Raven’s head and made him crow very loud.
The Miller said, ‘What does he say?’
The Little Peasant answered, ‘He says the devil is hidden in the linen chest.’
The Miller said, ‘The devil will have to go out’; and he opened the house door and made his Wife give up the keys. The Little Peasant unlocked the linen chest, and the Priest took to his heels as fast as ever he could.
The Miller said, ‘I saw the black fellow with my own eyes; there was no mistake about it.’
The Little Peasant made off at dawn with his three hundred thalers.
After this the Little Peasant began to get on in the world; he built himself a pretty new house, and the other Peasants said. ‘He must have been where the golden snow falls and where one brings home gold in bushels.’
Then he was summoned before the Bailiff to say where he got all his riches..
He answered, ‘I sold my cow-hide In the town for three hundred thalers.’
When the other Peasants heard this they all wanted to enjoy the same good luck, so they ran home, killed their cows, and took the hides off to get the same price for them.
The Bailiff said, ‘My maid must have the first chance.’ When she reached the town the buyer only gave her three thalers for the hide; and he did not even give the others so much, for he said, ‘What on earth am I to do with all these hides?’
Now the Peasants were enraged at the Little Peasant for having stolen a march upon them, and to revenge themselves they had him up before the Bailiff and accused him of cheating,
The innocent Little Peasant was unanimously condemned to death; he was to be put into a cask full of holes and rolled into the water. He was led out, and a Priest was brought to read a mass; and all the people had to stand at a distance.
As soon as the Little Peasant looked at the Priest, he knew he was the man who had been at the Miller’s. He said to him, ‘I saved you out of the chest, now you must save me out of the cask.’
Just then a Shepherd came by driving a flock of sheep, and the Little Peasant knew that he had long wanted to be Bailiff himself; so he called, out as loud as he could, ‘No, I will not, and. if all the world wished it I would not.’
The Shepherd, who heard what he said, came and asked, ‘What’s the matter, what will you not do?’
The Little Peasant said, ‘They want to make me Bailiff if I will sit in this cask, but I won’t.’
‘If that is all,’ said the Shepherd, ‘I will get into the cask myself.’
The Little Peasant said, ‘If you will get into the cask you shall be made Bailiff.’
The Shepherd was delighted, and got in, and the Little Peasant fastened down the cover upon him. The flock of sheep he took for himself, and drove them off.
Then the Priest went back to the Peasants and told them the mass was said; so they went and rolled the cask into the water.
When it began to roll the Shepherd cried out, ‘I am quite ready to be Bailiff!’
The Peasants thought that it was only the Little Peasant crying out, and they said, ‘Very likely; but you must go and look about you down below first.’ And they rolled the cask straight into the water.
Thereupon they went home, and when they entered the village what was their surprise to meet the Little Peasant calmly driving a flock of sheep before him, as happy as could be. They cried, ‘Why, you Little Peasant, how do you come here again? How did you get out of the water?’
‘Well,’ said the Little Peasant, ‘I sank deep, deep down till I touched the bottom; then I knocked the head of the cask, off, crept out, and found myself in a beautiful meadow In which numbers of lambs were feeding, and I brought this flock back with me.’
The other Peasants said, ‘Are there any more?’
‘Oh yes, plenty,’ answered the Little Peasant, ‘more than we should know what to do with.’
Then the other Peasants planned to fetch some of these sheep for themselves; they would each have a flock.
But the Bailiff said, ‘I go first.’
They all ran together to the water; the sky just then was flecked with little fleecy clouds and they were reflected in the water. When the Peasants saw them, they cried, ‘Why, there they are! We can see the sheep below the water!’
The Bailiff pressed forward, and said, ‘I will be the first to go down to look about me; I will call you if it is worth while.’ So he sprang into the water with a great splash.
The others thought he cried, ‘Come along!’ and the whole party plunged in after him.
So all the Peasants perished, and, as the Little Peasant was the sole heir, he became a rich man.
Fred and Kate
Fred and Kate were man and wife. They had not long been married.
One day Fred said, ‘I am going into the fields, Kate; I shall be hungry when I come in, so have something good ready for dinner, and a cool draught to quench my thirst.’
‘All right, Fred, I will have it ready for you when you come back.’
When dinner-time approached, she took down a sausage from the chininey, put it into a frying-pan with some butter, and placed it on the fire. The sausage began to frizzle and splutter, and Kate stood holding the pan lost in her thoughts.
Suddenly she said: ‘While the sausage is cooking, I might go down to the cellar to draw the beer.’ So she put the pan firmly on the fire, and took a jug down to the cellar to draw the beer.
Kate watched the beer running into the jug, and suddenly she said: ‘I don’t believe the dog is tied up; it might get the sausage out of the frying-pan and run off with it.’
She was up the cellar stairs in a twinkling, but the dog had. already got the sausage in his jaws, and was just making off with it, Kate, who was very agile, ran after him, and chased him a
good way over the fields. The dog, however, was quicker than she, and without letting go the sausage, he got right away.
‘What is gone, is gone!’ she said, and being tired out, she turned back and walked slowly home to cool herself.
In the meantime, the beer had been running out of the cask, because Kate had forgotten, to turn the tap. As soon as the jug was full, the rest ran all over the cellar floor, till the cask was quite empty.
Kate saw what had happened as soon as she got to the top of the cellar stairs. ‘Humph!’ she cried, ‘what am I to do now, so that Fred shan’t discover it?’
She thought a while, and at last she remembered a sack of fine meal they had left over from the last fair. She would fetch It down and strew it over the beer. ‘To be sure,’ she said, ‘those who save at the right time have something when they need it.’
Kate ran after him, and chased him a good way over the fields.
So she went up to the loft and brought the sack down, but, unfortunately, she threw It right on to the jug full of beer. It was overturned, and away went Fred’s drink, flooding the cellar with the rest.
‘Oh, that won’t matter!’ said Kate. ‘When part is gone, the rest may as well follow,’ Then she strewed the meal all over the cellar. She was delighted with her handiwork when it was finished, and said: ‘How clean and fresh it looks.’
At dinner-time Fred came home. ‘Well, wife, what have you got for dinner?’ he said.
‘O Fred!’ she answered, ‘I was frying you a sausage, but while I went down to draw the beer, the dog got it; and while I ran after the dog, the beer ran out of the cask. Then when I was going to dry up the beer with the meal, I knocked the jug over. But never mind, the cellar is quite dry now.’
Fred said: ‘Kate, Kate, what have you been doing? First you let the sausage be carried off, then you let the beer run out of the cask, and, lastly, you waste our fine meal.’
‘Well, Fred, I did not know; you should have told me what to do.’
The man thought: ‘If my wife is like this, I must look after things myself.’
Now, he had saved a nice little sum of money, which he changed into gold, and said to Kate; ‘Do you see these yellow counters? I am going to put them in a pot, and bury them underneath the cow’s manger in the stable; don’t you meddle with them, or it will be the worse for you.’
And she said: ‘Oh no, Fred, I won’t.’
Now, when Fred had gone out, several Pedlars came into the village with earthen pots and pans for sale. They asked the young wife if she had nothing to give in exchange for them.
‘Oh, good people,’ said Kate, ‘I have no money, and I can’t buy anything, but if some yellow counters would be any good to you, I might do some business.’
‘Yellow counters! Why not? You might as well show them to us,’ said the men.
‘You must go into the stable and dig under the cow’s manger, and you will find the yellow counters. I dare not go with you.’
So the rogues went to the stable and dug up the pot of gold. They seized it and made off with it as fast as they could, leaving their pots and pans behind.
Kate thought she must use the new utensils, but as there was no lack in the kitchen, she knocked the bottom out of every pot and pan, and hung them on the fence round the house as ornaments.
When Fred came home and saw the new decorations, he said: ‘Kate, whatever have you been doing now?’
‘I bought them, Fred, with the yellow counters which were hidden in the stable, but I did not get them myself; the Pedlars dug them up.’
‘Alas, wife!’ said Fred, ‘what have you done? Those were not counters, they were pure gold, and all that we possess. You should not have done it.’
‘Well, Fred, I did not know; you should have told me.’
Kate stood for a while thinking, then she said: ‘Listen, Fred, we will run after the thieves and get the money back.’
‘Come along then,’ said Fred, ‘we will try what we can do; but we must take some butter and cheese with us to eat on the way.’
‘All right,’ she answered. So they set out, but as Fred was fleeter of foot than Kate he was soon ahead of her.
‘I shall be the gainer,’ she said; ‘I shall be foremost when we turn.’
Soon they came to a mountain, and on both sides of the road there were deep cart ruts. ‘There, just see,’ said Kate, ‘how the poor earth is torn and scratched and squeezed; it can never be whole again as long as it lives.’
Then out of the kindness of her heart she took the butter and smeared the ruts right and left, so that they might not be torn by the wheels.
As she was stooping in this compassionate act, one of the cheeses fell out of her pocket, and rolled down the hill.
Kate said: ‘I have come up the hill once, and I don’t mean to do it again; I will send another of the cheeses to fetch it. So she took another out of her pocket and rolled it down. As it did not come back she sent a third rolling after it, and thought, ‘Perhaps they are waiting for company, and don’t like walking alone.’
When all three stayed away, she said; ‘I don’t know what is the meaning of this! it may be that the third one lost its way; I will send the fourth one to call it back,’ Nothing was seen of the fourth any more than of the third.
At last Kate got quite angry, and threw down the fifth and sixth, and they were the last.
For a time she stood looking to see if they were coming, but as they did not appear, she said: ‘Oh, you would be good folks to send in search of death, you would be a long time coming back. You need not think I am going to wait any longer for you: I am going on, and you may just come after me, your legs arc younger than mine.’
So Kate went on, and caught up Fred, who had stopped because he wanted something to eat. ‘Now give me the food you brought with you.’
She handed him some dry bread.
‘What has become of the butter and cheese?’ said the man.
‘O Fred!’ said Kate, ‘I smeared the cart ruts with the butter, but the cheese will soon be here. One of them slipped away from me, and then I sent the others to fetch it back.’
Then said Fred: ‘You should not have wasted the butter, Kate, or sent the cheeses rolling down the hill.’
‘Well, Fred, you ought to have told me so,’ said Kate.
So they ate the dry bread together, and Fred said: ‘Did you lock up the house, Kate, before you came away?’
‘No, Fred; you should have told me sooner.’
Her husband said: ‘Well, then, go home and lock up the house before we go any further, and bring something else to eat. I will wait for you here.’
So Kate went, and she thought to herself, ‘As Fred wants something else to eat, I suppose he does not like bread and cheese, I will take him some dried apples and a jug of vinegar to drink.’
Then she bolted the upper half of the door, but she lifted the lower part from its hinges, and took it with her on her back, thinking that if she had the door In safety the house would be safe. She took plenty of time on her way back, for she thought: ‘Fred will have the more time to rest.’
When she reached him again, she said; ‘Here you have the house door, Fred, so you can take care of the house yourself.’
‘Good heavens,’ he said, ‘what a clever wife I have. She bolts the upper part of the door, and lifts the lower part off its hinges, so that anything may run in and out. It’s too late to go back to the house now; but as you have brought the door so far, you may just carry it further.’
‘I will carry the door, Fred,’ she said, ‘But the apples and the jug of vinegar are too heavy; I will hang them on the door, and it may carry them.’
They now went into the wood to look for the rogues, but they did not find them. As it was dark, they climbed up a tree to spend the night there.
They had hardly, settled themselves, before the Pedlars came up. They were the sort of people who take away things which should not be taken, and who find things before they are lost.
They lay down just under the tree in which Fred and Kate were. They lighted a fire, and began to divide their booty.
Fred got down at the other side of the tree, and picked up a lot of stones with which he meant to kill the thieves. The stones did not hit them, however, and the rogues said: ‘It will soon be day, the wind Is blowing down the pine cones.’
Kate still had the door on her back, and she thought it was the dried apples which made It so heavy, so she said: ‘Fred, I must throw down the apples.’
‘No, Kate, not now,’ he answered; ‘they would betray us.’
‘But, Fred, I must, they are so heavy.’
‘Well, let them go then, in the name of fortune!’ he cried, and down rolled the apples.
And the Pedlars said: ‘The leaves are falling,’
A little later, finding that the door still pressed very heavily, Kate said: ‘Fred, I must pour away the vinegar.’
‘No, Kate, not now; it would betray us.’
‘Rut, Fred, I must, it is terribly heavy.’
‘Well, do it, then, if you must, in the name of fortune!’
So she poured out the vinegar, and the Pedlars were sprinkled with it.
They said to each other: ‘Why, the dew is falling already.’
At last Kate thought: ‘Can it be the door that presses so heavily?’ And she said: ‘Fred, I must throw the door down.’
‘No, Kate, not now; it might betray us.’
‘But, Fred, I must; it weighs me down.’
‘No, Kate, hold it fast.’
‘Fred, it’s slipping, I must let it fall.’
‘Well, let it fall, then, in the devil’s name!’
So down it fell through the branches with such a clatter, that the Pedlars cried: ‘The devil’s in this tree’ And they ran away as fast as ever they could go, leaving all their treasure behind them.
In the early morning, when Fred and Kate climbed down, they found all their gold, and took it home with them.
Sweetheart Roland
Once upon a time there was a woman who was a real Witch, and she had two daughters; one was ugly and wicked, but she loved her because she was her own daughter. The other was good and lovely, but she hated her for she was only her step-daughter.