The Man Who Was to Mind the House

Once upon a time there was a man who was so cross and angry that he never thought his wife did enough in the house. One evening during the haymaking, he came home, and he scolded and cursed so that sparks flew. "Dear me, don't be so angry, husband," said his wife. "Tomorrow we'll swap jobs: I'll go out with the haymakers and mow, and you can mind the house." The man thought that was a good idea, and he was happy to do it.

Early the next morning, the wife put the scythe over her shoulder and went out to the meadow with the mowers to mow. The husband was then to start managing the house. First, he wanted to churn butter. But after he had churned for a while, he got thirsty and went down to the cellar to tap beer.

While he was filling the beer bowl, he heard that the pig had come into the living room. He hurried up the cellar stairs with the tap in his hand to watch the pig so it wouldn't knock over the churn.

But when he saw that the pig had already knocked over the churn and stood there licking the cream that ran across the floor, he got so damn furious that he completely forgot the beer barrel and ran after the pig as fast as he could.

He grabbed it again in the door and gave it a hard kick, so it lay dead.

Then he remembered he had the tap in his hand, but when he got down to the cellar, all the beer had run out of the barrel. He then went to the dairy and found so much cream that he filled the churn, and then he started churning again; for he wanted butter for dinner.

While he was churning, he remembered that the house cow was inside and had not had either wet or dry, even though it was late in the day. He thought it was too far to go to the home meadow, so he thought he would let it up on the roof.

The building had a sod roof, and fine grass grew there. The house lay by a steep hill, and if he laid a plank up to the roof, he thought he could get the cow up there.

But he did not dare let go of the churn, because his little child was crawling about the floor and might knock it over. He put the churn on his back and went out. But first he had to water the cow before letting it up onto the roof.

He took a bucket and was going to get water from the well, but when he bent over the edge, the cream ran out of the churn and down his neck and into the well. It was getting close to noon, and he still hadn't gotten any butter, so he thought he would cook porridge.

He hung a pot of water on the stove.

When he had done that, it occurred to him that the cow might fall off the roof and break its legs or neck. He went up on the roof to tie it.

He tied one end of the rope around the cow's neck, dropped it down the chimney, and tied the other end around his thigh.

For the water was already boiling in the pot, and he had to stir the porridge. While he was busy with that, the cow fell off the roof anyway, and pulled the man up through the chimney by the rope. There he got stuck, and the cow hung outside the wall, dangling between heaven and earth, and could neither get up nor down.

The wife had waited for ages for the man to come and call her to dinner, but nothing happened. Finally, she thought it was too long, and at last went home. When she saw that the cow was hanging so terribly, she went over and cut the rope with the scythe. At that very moment, the man fell down through the chimney, and when the wife came in, he was standing on his head in the porridge pot.