Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/500

418 the cheeses roll away, form part of another from Hesse. The jest of the counters and the earthenware pots, occurs in a third story from Fritzlar. In that from Zwehrn the man gives out that he has buried a hare-skin under the cow's manger. Catharine bids the pedlars take this up, whereupon they find the treasure. She hangs the pots which she has bought round about her house on the nails which are sticking in it. A fourth story, from the neighbourhood of Diemel, has various pecuHarities. The man goes to his work in the fields, and says to his wife, "Put some meat among the cabbage, and when it is ready bring it out into the field to me." She takes the raw meat, carries it into the field where her cabbages are growing, and puts it among them. The dog soon scents it out, and carries off the meat; she runs after him, catches him, and as a punishment, ties him up at home to the beer-barrel in the cellar, and indeed to the tap. The dog becomes wild and impatient, and pulls the tap out. When the woman comes into the cellar all the beer is swimming about it. Then she dries it up with the flour. She takes with her some vinegar and dried pears, and, in order to secure the house, takes the door off its hinges, puts it on her back, and goes out. Her husband reproaches her for bringing such bad food, but they sit down to eat it. Then they see twelve robbers coming. In their terror they climb up a tree, and, that they may not be discovered, take the food and the door up with them. The robbers come and sit down immediately below them, and begin to divide six bags of gold. They are however, as in our story, frightened away, and the man and his wife drag the bags home. The woman borrows a measure of her neighbour to measure the gold in, and one piece of gold is left sticking in it, which makes the latter suspicious. So the woman tells everything that has happened. And now every one goes into the forest to get gold, but none return, for no one was so stupid as the woman, and the robbers killed all who ventured to show themselves in the forest. The man and the foolish woman lived very happily and free from all care till their death. There is another story in Colshorn, No. 37. In Norwegian in Asbjörnsen, p. 202. The incident of throwing down the door on the rascals is to be found in Kuhn and Schwartz, No. 13. Vardiello, in the Pentamerone (1. 4), and No. 49 in Morlini, are in some degree allied to this. Two Slavonian stories in Vogl—The Master Liar, pp. 64–65, and Hans at School, p. 83, where stupid things of another kind are done—should be compared with this.

For the main lines of our story we are indebted to one from Paderborn, which is the simplest and most natural. The beginning of this has also been told us in Hesse as a fragment, and with some