FSFNcomenius

The man who did the choresOnce upon a time there was an old man who was grumpy and crazy. He was not pleased with his wife because he didn’t think she did enough chores. When he came home one night during the harvest he yelled and cursed.“Oh dear husband, don’t be cruel”, the wife said. Tomorrow we will swap work. I will do the harvesting and you can do the cooking and chores. The man liked her suggestion and agreed. Early in the morning the wife took the scythe and started harvesting with the other men. Meanwhile the husband took care of the house. First he was going to make butter, but after he had churned a while he got thirsty and went down to the basement to get some beer. While he was down in the basement he could hear the pig had found its way into the house.  He ran up into the kitchen with the beer tap in his hand hoping the pig hadn’t tipped over the cream. But when he figured the pig already had tipped over the cream and was licking it off the floor, he got so furious he forgot the beer barrel and started chasing the pig. When he caught the pig and kicked it, he remembered the beer barrel in the basement. When he came down the barrel was empty.   Again he went out in the milk place to get enough cream to churn the butter he wanted for dinner. While he was churning he remembered the cow who he still hadn’t given food nor water for a long time, and even though he had been awake for a long time now, the cow still stood inside the cow shed.The man thought it was a too long walk to the pasture, so he decided to let the cow out on the roof. The cow house was a turf-roofed building, and the grass had been growing for a long time, so there was a lot of it. The house was placed in a step hill, and when he placed a plank to the roof, he believed that he could get the cow up there.  But he didn’t dear to let go of the churn, because his little kid was crawling around on the floor, and the possibility for him spilling it out was big.  So he strapped the churn to his back, but went to give the cow some water, before helping it up onto the roof. So he went to the well, but as he leaned over the well to get the water, the cream was spilled out of the churn, into his neck, and then into the well. Soon it was dinner, but he hadn’t managed to make butter yet. He figured that he should make porridge instead, so he hung a cast-iron pan with water over the oven. When he had done this, he remembered that the cow could fall down from the roof and break every bone in her body, that’s why he went back on the roof to tie her down. He tied one end of the rope to the cow’s neck, the other end he threw down the chimney before he tied it to his thigh. The water was already boiling in the iron pan, and he had to start making the porridge. At the same time the cow fell down from the roof, and the man was dragged into the chimney, he couldn’t get loose. The cow was hanging outside the walls of the house, hovering between heaven and hell, and couldn’t get loose either. The wife had waited for a long, long time for the husband to call her home for dinner. It took a long time, but nothing happened. Finally she had had enough and went back home. When she saw the cow hanging from the roof, she took the scythe and cut the cow down. When she got inside she found her husband up-side down in the cast-iron pan.