Topic: The Husband Who Was To Mind The House

NorseLady

Date: 2006-04-01 03:38 EST
A welcoming smile is sent your way as you make yourself comfortable around the crackling fire, joining the circle of others who have also gathered. It is a cozy group. Lanquid lapping of water against shoreline is calming. Soft voice carries for all to hear. A rhythmic ebb and flow of modulated sound. . .

'Once upon a time there was a man who was so bad tempered and cross that he ne'er thought his wife did anything in the house. One evening, in haymaking time, he came home tired, scolding and swearing, and showing his teeth and making a commotion.

"Dear, do not be so angry," said his wife, "tomorrow let us change jobs. I shall go out with the mowers and mow, and you can mind the house at home."

Ja, the husband thought that would do very well. He was quite willing, he said, for he was sure that his job was more difficult.

So early the next morning his wife took a scythe, and went out into the hay field with the mowers and began to mow. But the man was to mind the home and do all the housework.

First of all he wanted to churn the butter. But when he had churned a while, he got thirsty and went down to the cellar to tap a barrel of ale. He had just knocked in the bung and was putting in the tap, when he heard the pig come into the kitchen above. As fast as he could, he ran up the cellar steps, with the tap in his hand, to keep the pig from upsetting the churn. But when he got there he saw that the pig had already knocked the churn o'er, and was standing there routing and grunting in the cream which was running all o'er the floor. He got so angry that he quite forgot the ale barrel and ran at the pig as hard as he could. He caught it, too, just as it ran out of doors, and gave it such a powerful kick.

Then he remembered he had the tap in his hand. But when he returned to the cellar, all the ale had run out of the barrel. Then he went into the milk-shed and found enough cream left to fill the churn again, and so he began to churn, for they had to have butter for dinner.

When he had churned a bit, he remembered the milk cow was still shut up in the barn and had not a bite to eat or a drop to drink all morning. It occurred to him that it was too far to take her down to the meadow, so he decided to put her up onto the roof, for it was a sod roof, and a fine crop of grass was growing there. The house was close against a steep hill, and he thought if he laid a plank across to the back of the roof he could easily get the cow up.

But he could not leave the churn, for his child was crawling about on the floor. "If I leave it," he thought, "the boy will tip it o'er." So he put the churn on his back, and went outside with it. But then he thought he had better first water the cow before he put her onto the roof, so he picked up a bucket to draw water out of the well. Alas, as he stooped o'er the edge of the well all the cream ran out of the churn o'er his shoulder and down into the pit.

Nearly dinner time, and he had not e'en finished the butter yet, so he thought he had best boil the porridge. He filled the pot with water and hung it o'er the fire. When he had done that, it occurred to him the cow might fall off the roof and break her legs, so he climbed up onto the house to tie her up. He tied one end of the rope around the cow's neck. He slipped the other end down the chimney and once inside, tied it around his own leg. Then he had to hurry, for the water was beginning to boil and he still had to grind the oatmeal.

He began to grind away. While he was hard at it, the cow fell off the roof, dragging the man up the chimney by the rope. There he stuck fast. As for the cow, she hung halfway down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth, for she could neither get down nor up.

Now the wife waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her husband to come and call her home to dinner. At last she thought she had waited long enough, and went home. When she arrived and saw the cow hanging there, she ran up and cut the rope with the scythe. When she did this, her husband fell down from within the chimney. Once the woman went inside, she found her husband with his head deep in the porridge pot.

"Oh dear," said his wife as she cradled their crying, frightened child, "who has the more difficult job?" '