Once on a time there was a lad who was walking along a road cracking
nuts, so he found one that was worm-eaten, and just at that very moment
he met the Deil.
“Is it true, now”, said the lad, “what they say, that the Deil can make
himself as small as he chooses, and thrust himself in through a
pinhole?”
“Yes it is”, said the Deil.
“Oh! it is, is it? then let me see you do it, and just creep into this
nut”, said the lad.
So the Deil did it.
Now, when he had crept well in through the worm’s hole, the lad stopped
it up with a pin.
“Now, I’ve got you safe”, he said, and put the nut into his pocket.
So when he had walked on a bit, he came to a smithy, and he turned in
and asked the smith if he’d be good enough to crack that nut for him.
“Aye, that’ll be an easy job”, said the smith, and took his smallest
hammer, laid the nut on the anvil, and gave it a blow, but it wouldn’t
break.
So he took another hammer a little bigger, but that wasn’t heavy enough
either.
Then he took one bigger still, but it was still the same story; and so
the smith got wroth, and grasped his great sledge-hammer.
“Now, I’ll crack you to bits”, he said, and let drive at the nut with
all his might and main. And so the nut flew to pieces with a bang that
blew off half the roof of the smithy, and the whole house creaked and
groaned as though it were ready to fall.
“Why! if I don’t think the Deil must have been in that nut”, said the
smith.
“So he was; you’re quite right”, said the lad, as he went away
laughing.