MOTHER BERTHA'S STORIES. 125 <e But a good while after that he was up in the wood busy cutting up some materials for fencing. He was driving a wedge into a big log, when, as he thought, his wife came up to him with his dinner. It was cream porridge, floating in butter. She brought it in a pail, which was so bright that it shone like silver. She sat down on the log, while he put his axe aside and seated himself on a stump near her ; but he then discovered that there was a cow's tail hanging down into the cleft in the log. " Now you may easily suppose that he did not touch the por ridge, but he sat laughing and playing with the wedge, until it came out and the tail was nipped by the log, and at the same time he wrote a sacred nåme on the pail. " But the huldre took to her heels then, you may be sure ; she jumped up in such a hurry that the tail came right off and stuck in the log, and she was gone, — he dld not see what became of her. The pail was only of bark, and there was nothing but dirt in it. Since that time he scarcely ever dared to go out in the wood, for he was afraid she would have her revenge upon him. " But four or five years after that, a horse of his ran away from the farm, and he had to go himself and look for it. All of a sudden, while he was walking through the forest, he found himself inside a hut with some people, but he never knew how he came there. An ugly old hag was walking about the room tidying it up, and in a corner sat a child, who might be about four years old. The woman took the becr-tankard and went over to the child with it and said: 'Go andgive your father a drink!' Hegot so frightened that he took to his heels, and since he has never seen or heard of her or the youngster ; but he was always queer and confused after that." " Ycs, but he must have been a fool, that Mads," I said, "he couldn't have been much of a wise man, since he couldn't mmd himself better. But that about the ball of grey worsted was very amusing." Bertha thought so also, but such a wise man as Mads was could not, however, be found for many miles around. While wc were sitting and chatting about this, I asked Bertha to bring me my
