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NCE there was a poor old woman who lived in a village; she had collected a bundle of beans, and was going to cook them. So she prepared a fire on her hearth, and to make it burn up quickly she lighted it with a handful of straw. When she threw the beans into the pot, one escaped her unnoticed and slipped on to the floor, where it lay by a straw. Soon after a glowing coal jumped out of the fire and joined the others. Then the Straw began, and said: ‘Little friends, how came ye hither?’

The Coal answered: ‘I have happily escaped the fire; and if I had not done so by force of will, my death would certainly have been a most cruel one; I should have been burnt to a cinder.’

The Bean said: ‘I also have escaped so far with a whole skin; but if the old woman had put me into the pot, I should have been pitilessly boiled down to broth like my comrades.’

‘Would a better fate have befallen me, then?’ asked the Straw; ‘the old woman packed all my brothers into the fire and smoke, sixty of them all done for at once. Fortunately, I slipped through her fingers.’

‘What are we to do now, though?’ asked the Coal.

‘My opinion is,’ said the Bean, ‘that, as we have escaped death, we must all keep together like good comrades; and so that we may run no further risks, we had better quit the country.’

This proposal pleased both the others, and they set out together. Before long they came to a little stream, and, as there was neither path nor bridge, they did not know how to get over. The Straw at last had an idea, and said, ‘I will