The Husband Who Was to Mind the House

ONCE on a time there was a man so mean and cross that he never thought his wife did anything right in the house. So one evening in hay-making time he came home scolding and tearing, and showing his teeth and making a fuss.

"Dear love, don't be so angry; there's a good man," said his goody; "to-morrow let's change our work. I'll go out with the mowers and mow, and you shall mind the house at home."

The husband thought that would do very well. He was quite willing, he said.

So, early next morning his goody took a scythe on her shoulders, and went out into the hayfield with the mowers, and began to mow; but the man was to mind the house and do the work at home.

First of all he wanted to churn the butter; but when he had churned a while, he grew thirsty and went down to the cellar to tap a barrel of ale. So, just when he was putting the tap into the cask, he heard overhead the pig come into the kitchen. Then off he ran up the cellar steps, with the tap in his hand, as fast as he could to look after the pig, lest it should upset the churn. But when he got up, and saw the pig had already knocked the churn over and stood there grunting and rooting in the cream which was running all over the floor, he became so wild with rage, that he quite forgot the ale barrel, and ran at the pig as hard as he could.

He caught it, too, just as it ran out of doors, and gave it such a kick that piggy died on the spot. Then all at once he remembered he had the tap in his hand; but when he got down to the cellar, every drop of ale had run out of the cask.

Then he went into the dairy and found enough cream left to fill the churn again, and so he began to churn, for butter they must have at dinner. When he had churned a bit, he remembered that their milking cow was still shut up in its stall, and had not had a mouthful to eat or a drop to drink all the morning, though the sun was high. Then he thought it was too far to take her down to the meadow, so he'd just get her up on the house top, for the house, you must know, was thatched with sods, and a fine crop of grass was growing there. Now their house lay close up against a steep rock, and he thought if he laid a plank across to the roof at the back, he'd easily get the cow up.

But still he could not leave the churn, for there was their little babe crawling about the floor, and, "If I leave it," he thought, "the child is sure to upset it."

So he took the churn on his back and went out with it. Then he thought he'd better water the cow before he turned her out on the thatch, and he took up a bucket to draw water out of the well. But, as he stooped down at the brink of the well, all the cream ran out of the churn over his shoulders, about his neck, and down into the well.

Now it was near dinner time, and he had not even got butter yet. So he thought he'd best boil the porridge, and he filled the pot with water, and hung it over the fire. When he had done that, he thought the cow might perhaps fall off the thatch and break her legs or her neck. So he got up on the house to tie her up. One end of the rope he made fast to the cow's neck, and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round his own waist. He had to make haste, for the water now began to boil in the pot, and he had still to grind the oatmeal.

So he began to grind away; but while he was hard at it, down fell the cow off the housetop after all, and as she fell she dragged the man up the chimney by the rope. There he stuck fast. And as for the cow, she hung halfway down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth, for she could neither get down nor up.

And now the goody had waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her husband to come and call them home to dinner, but never a call they had. At last she thought she'd waited long enough and went home.

When she got there and saw the cow hanging in such an ugly place, she ran up and cut the rope in two with her scythe. But as she did this, down came her husband out of the chimney, and so when his old dame came inside the kitchen, there she found him standing on his head in the porridge pot.

Thorne-Thomsen, Gudrun. East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon. Chicago: Row, Peterson and Company, 1912.