everything in its place again, she bent over the kitchen table, and the sound of her big scissors might be heard snip! snap! as far as the garden. Her husband could not see anything to snip at; but then he was so stupid that was not surprising!
After the cutting came the sewing. The woman patted and pinned and fixed and joined, and then, turning to the man, she said:
'Now it is ready for you to try on.' And she made him take off his coat, and stand up in front of her, and once more she patted an pinned and fixed and joined, and was very careful in smoothing out every wrinkle.
'It does not feel very warm,' observed the man at last, when he had borne all this patiently for a long time.
'That is because it is so fine,' answered she; 'you do not want it to be as thick as the rough clothes you wear every day.'
He DID, but was ashamed to say so, and only answered: 'Well, I am sure it must be beautiful since you say so, and I shall be smarter than anyone in the whole village. 'What a splendid coat!' they will exclaim when they see me. But it is not everybody who has a wife as clever as mine.'
Meanwhile the other wife was not idle. As soon as her husband entered she looked at him with such a look of terror that the poor man was quite frightened.
'Why do you stare at me so? Is there anything the matter?' asked he.
'Oh! go to bed at once,' she cried; 'you must be very ill indeed to look like that!'
The man was rather surprised at first, as he felt particularly well that evening; but the moment his wife spoke he became quite certain that he had something dreadful the matter with him, and grew quite pale.
'I dare say it would be the best place for me,' he answered, trembling; and he suffered his wife to take him upstairs, and to help him off with his clothes.
'If you sleep well during the might there MAY be a chance for you,' said she, shaking her head, as she tucked him up warmly; 'but if not-' And of course the poor man never closed an eye till the sun rose.
'How do you feel this morning?' asked the woman, coming in on tip-toe when her house-work was finished.
'Oh, bad; very bad indeed,' answered he; 'I have not slept for a moment. Can you think of nothing to make me better?'
'I will try everything that is possible,' said the wife, who did not in the least wish her husband to die, but was determined to show that he was more foolish that the other man. 'I will get some dried herbs and make you a drink, but I am very much afraid that it is too late. Why did you not tell me before?'
'I thought perhaps the pain would go off in a day or two; and, besides, I did not want to make you unhappy,' answered the man, who was by this time quite sure he had been suffering tortures, and had borne them like a hero. 'Of course, if I had had any idea how ill I really was, I should have spoken at once.'
'Well, well, I will see what can be done,' said the wife, 'but talking is not good for you. Lie still, and keep yourself warm.'
All that day the man lay in bed, and whenever his wife entered the room and asked him, with a shake of the head, how he felt, he always replied that he was getting worse. At last, in the evening, she burst into tears, and when he inquired what was the matter, she sobbed out:
'Oh, my poor, poor husband, are you really dead? I must go to-morrow and order your coffin.'
Now, when the man heard this, a cold shiver ran through his body, and all at once he knew that he was as well as he had ever been in his life.
'Oh, no, no!' he cried, 'I feel quite recovered! Indeed, I think I shall go out to work.'
'You will do no such thing,' replied his wife. 'Just keep quite quiet, for before the sun rises you will be a dead man.'
The man was very frightened at her words, and lay absolutely still while the undertaker came and measured him for his coffin; and his wife gave orders to the gravedigger about his grave. That evening the coffin was sent home, and in the morning at nine o'clock the woman put him on a long flannel garment, and called to the undertaker's men to fasten down the lid and carry him to the grave, where all their friends were waiting them. Just as the body was being placed in the ground the other woman's husband came running up, dressed, as far as anyone could see, in no clothes at all. Everybody burst into shouts of laughter at the sight of him, and the men laid down the coffin and laughed too, till their sides nearly split. The dead man was so astonished at this behaviour, that he peeped out of a little window in the side of the coffin, and cried out:
'I should laugh as loudly as any of you, if I were not a dead man.'
When they heard the voice coming from the coffin the other people suddenly stopped laughing, and stood as if they had been turned into stone. Then they rushed with one accord to the coffin, and lifted the lid so that the man could step out amongst them.
'Were you really not dead after all?' asked they. 'And if not, why did you let yourself be buried?'
At this the wives both confessed that they had each wished to prove that her husband was stupider than the other. But the villagers declared that they could not decide which was the most foolish-the man who allowed himself to be persuaded that he was wearing fine clothes when he was dressed in nothing, or the man who let himself be buried when he was alive and well.
So the women quarrelled just as much as they did before, and no one ever knew whose husband was the most foolish.
[Adapted from the Neuislandische Volksmarchen.]
Asmund and Signy
Long, long ago, in the days when fairies, witches, giants and ogres still visited the earth, there lived a king who reigned over a great and beautiful country. He was married to a wife whom he dearly loved, and had two most promising children-a son called Asmund, and a daughter who was named Signy.
The king and queen were very anxious to bring their children up well, and the young prince and princess were taught everything likely to make them clever and accomplished. They lived at home in their father's palace, and he spared no pains to make their lives happy.
Prince Asmund dearly loved all outdoor sports and an open-air life, and from his earliest childhood he had longed to live entirely in the forest close by. After many arguments and entreaties he succeeded in persuading the king to give him two great oak trees for his very own.
'Now,' said he to his sister, 'I will have the trees hollowed out, and then I will make rooms in them and furnish them so that I shall be able to live out in the forest.'
'Oh, Asmund!' exclaimed Signy, 'what a delightful idea! Do let me come too, and live in one of your trees. I will bring all my pretty things and ornaments, and the trees are so near home we shall be quite safe in them.'
Asmund, who was extremely fond of his sister, readily consented, and they had a very happy time together, carrying over all their pet treasures, and Signy's jewels and other ornaments, and arranging them in the pretty little rooms inside the trees.
Unfortunately sadder days were to come. A war with another country broke out, and the king had to lead his army against their enemy. During his absence the queen fell ill, and after lingering for some time she died, to the great grief of her children. They made up their minds to live altogether for a time in their trees, and for this purpose they had provisions enough stored up inside to last them a year.
Now, I must tell you, in another country a long way off, there reigned a king who had an only son named Ring. Prince Ring had heard so much about the beauty and goodness of Princess Signy that he determined to marry her if possible. So he begged his father to let him have a ship for the voyage, set sail with a favourable wind, and after a time landed in the country where Signy lived.
The prince lost no time in setting out for the royal palace, and on his way there he met such a wonderfully lovely woman that he felt he had never seen such beauty in all his life. He stopped her and at once asked who she was.
'I am Signy, the king's daughter,' was the reply.
Then the prince inquired why she was wandering about all by herself, and she told him that since her mother's death she was so sad that whilst her father was away she preferred being alone.
Ring was quite deceived by her, and never guessed that she was not Princess Signy at all, but a strong, gigantic, wicked witch bent on deceiving him under a beautiful shape. He confided to her that he had travelled all the way from his own country for her sake, having fallen in love with the accounts he had heard of her beauty, and
