Once on a time there was a man, so surly and cross, he never thought
his wife did anything right in the house. So, one evening, in
hay-making time, he came home, scolding and swearing, and showing his
teeth and making a dust.
“Dear love, don’t be so angry; there’s a good man”, said his goody;
“to-morrow let’s change our work. I’ll go out with the mowers and mow,
and you shall mind the house at home.”
Yes! the husband thought that would do very well. He was quite willing,
he said.
So, early next morning, his goody took a scythe over her neck, and went
out into the hay-field with the mowers, and began to mow; but the man
was to mind the house, and do the work at home.
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. So, just when he had knocked in the bung, and was putting the tap
into the cask, he heard overhead the pig come into the kitchen. Then
off he ran up the cellar steps, with the tap in his hand, as fast as he
could, to look after the pig, lest it should upset the churn; but when
he got up, and saw the pig had already knocked the churn over, and
stood there, routing and grunting amongst the cream which was running
all over the floor, he got so wild with rage 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 kick, that piggy lay
for dead on the spot.
Then all at once he remembered he had the tap in his hand; but when he
got down to the cellar, every drop of ale had run out of the cask.
Then he went into the dairy and found enough cream left to fill the
churn again, and so he began to churn, for butter they must have at
dinner. When he had churned a bit, he remembered that their milking cow
was still shut up in the byre, and hadn’t had a bit to eat or a drop to
drink all the morning, though the sun was high. Then all at once he
thought ’twas too far to take her down to the meadow, so he’d just get
her up on the house top-for the house, you must know, was thatched with
sods, and a fine crop of grass was growing there. Now their house lay
close up against a steep down, and he thought if he laid a plank across
to the thatch at the back he’d easily get the cow up.
But still he couldn’t leave the churn, for there was his little babe
crawling about on the floor, and “if I leave it”, he thought, “the
child is safe to upset it”. So he took the churn on his back, and went
out with it; but then he thought he’d better first water the cow before
he turned her out on the thatch; so he took up a bucket to draw water
out of the well; but, as he stooped down at the well’s brink, all the
cream ran out of the churn over his shoulders, and so down into the
well.
Now it was near dinner-time, and he hadn’t even got the butter yet; so
he thought he’d best boil the porridge, and filled the pot with water,
and hung it over the fire. When he had done that, he thought the cow
might perhaps fall off the thatch and break her legs or her neck. So he
got up on the house to tie her up. One end of the rope he made fast to
the cow’s neck and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round
his own thigh; and he had to make haste, for the water now began to
boil in the pot, and he had still to grind the oatmeal.
So he began to grind away; but while he was hard at it, down fell the
cow off the house-top after all, and as she fell, she dragged the man
up the chimney by the rope. There he stuck fast; and as for the cow,
she hung half-way down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth, for
she could neither get down nor up.
And now the goody had waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her
husband to come and call them home to dinner; but never a call they
had. At last she thought she’d waited long enough, and went home. But
when she got there and saw the cow hanging in such an ugly place, she
ran up and cut the rope in two with her scythe. But as she did this,
down came her husband out of the chimney; and so when his old dame came
inside the kitchen, there she found him standing on his head in the
porridge pot.