25 lines
1.4 KiB
Text
25 lines
1.4 KiB
Text
The Beam
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There was once an enchanter who was standing in the midst of a great
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crowd of people performing his wonders. He had a cock brought in, which
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lifted a heavy beam and carried it as if it were as light as a feather.
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But a girl was present who had just found a bit of four-leaved clover,
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and had thus become so wise that no deception could stand out against
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her, and she saw that the beam was nothing but a straw. So she cried,
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"You people, do you not see that it is a straw that the cock is
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carrying, and no beam?" Immediately the enchantment vanished, and the
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people saw what it was, and drove the magician away in shame and
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disgrace. He, however, full of inward anger, said, "I will soon revenge
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myself."
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After some time the girl's wedding-day came, and she was decked out,
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and went in a great procession over the fields to the place where the
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church was. All at once she came to a stream which was very much
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swollen, and there was no bridge and no plank to cross it. Then the
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bride nimbly took her clothes up, and wanted to wade through it. And
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just as she was thus standing in the water, a man, and it was the
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enchanter, cried mockingly close beside her, "Aha! Where are thine eyes
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that thou takest that for water?" Then her eyes were opened, and she
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saw that she was standing with her clothes lifted up in the middle of a
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field that was blue with the flowers of blue flax. Then all the people
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saw it likewise, and chased her away with ridicule and laughter.
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