ONCE upon a time there was a peasant who lived in great poverty with his
wife. He was as dull as a sheep, but she was as wily as a serpent, and
she was so bad tempered that she used to beat him for any little thing
that put her out.
One day the woman begged some corn of a neighbour so that she might make
some bread, and she sent her husband off to the mill with it to get it
ground. The miller knew they were very poor, so he ground the corn for
nothing, and the man set off to go home with the flour. As he was on his
way there came all of a sudden such a fierce blast of wind that all the
flour was, in a moment, blown away out of the pan which he carried on
his head. So the man went home and told his wife what had happened. When
she heard his story she set upon him and gave him a hearty beating, and
then, having scolded and thrashed till she could do no more, she told
him to be off to the wind and ask it either to give him the flour back
again or to pay him for it.
The man went off out of the house, weeping; and, not knowing in what
direction to go, he went to a great dark forest. There he wandered
about, here and there. At last an old woman met him.
“Good man,” said she, “where are you going? How came you in these parts,
where no bird ever flies, and scarce a wild animal runs?”
“My mother,” said he, “I have been forced to come here. I carried some
corn to the mill to be ground, and when it was finished, as I carried
the flour home, the wind came and scattered it all out of the pan. I had
no flour when I got home, and I told my wife what had happened; so she
beat me, and sent me off to the wind to ask it to give me the flour
again or to pay me for it. So I came here to look for the wind, but I do
not know where to find it.”
“Come with me,” said the woman. “I am the mother of the winds, and I
have four sons. The first is the East-wind, the second the South-wind,
the third the West-wind, and the fourth the North-wind. Tell me, now,
which wind was it that took your flour?”
“It was the South-wind,” said the man.
The old woman led the man deep into the forest, and bringing him to a
little hut, said—
“Here we are, my man. Climb up upon the stove and cover yourself up, for
my children will soon be here.”
“Why should I cover myself?” asked the man.
“Because, my son, the North-wind, will be here,” said the woman, “and he
will otherwise freeze you up.”
In a short time the sons began to come in. When the South-wind had
arrived, the old woman told the man to come off the stove, and said to
her son—
“South-wind, my dear son, this man has a complaint against you. Why do
you hurt the poor? You have taken this man’s flour out of his pan. Now
give him money for it, or make him some recompense.”
“Very well, mother,” said the South-wind, “I will buy the flour of him.”