30 lines
1.9 KiB
Text
30 lines
1.9 KiB
Text
The Flail From Heaven
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A countryman was once going out to plough with a pair of oxen. When he
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got to the field, both the animals’ horns began to grow, and went on
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growing, and when he wanted to go home they were so big that the oxen
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could not get through the gateway for them. By good luck a butcher came
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by just then, and he delivered them over to him, and made the bargain
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in this way, that he should take the butcher a measure of turnip-seed,
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and then the butcher was to count him out a Brabant thaler for every
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seed. I call that well sold! The peasant now went home, and carried the
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measure of turnip-seed to him on his back. On the way, however, he lost
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one seed out of the bag. The butcher paid him justly as agreed on, and
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if the peasant had not lost the seed, he would have had one thaler the
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more. In the meantime, when he went on his way back, the seed had grown
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into a tree which reached up to the sky. Then thought the peasant, “As
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thou hast the chance, thou must just see what the angels are doing up
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there above, and for once have them before thine eyes.” So he climbed
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up, and saw that the angels above were threshing oats, and he looked
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on. While he was thus watching them, he observed that the tree on which
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he was standing, was beginning to totter; he peeped down, and saw that
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someone was just going to cut it down. “If I were to fall down from
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hence it would be a bad thing,” thought he, and in his necessity he did
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not know how to save himself better than by taking the chaff of the
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oats which lay there in heaps, and twisting a rope of it. He likewise
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snatched a hoe and a flail which were lying about in heaven, and let
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himself down by the rope. But he came down on the earth exactly in the
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middle of a deep, deep hole. So it was a real piece of luck that he had
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brought the hoe, for he hoed himself a flight of steps with it, and
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mounted up, and took the flail with him as a token of his truth, so
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that no one could have any doubt of his story.
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