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