Foolish Men and Scolding Wives. 204 One of them said there was nothing which she could not get her husband to believe, if she only said it, for he was as stupid as the trolls, and believed anything. The other said that there was nothing so silly that she could not get her husband to do, if she only said it ought to be done, for he was so foolish and stupid that you could not easily find his like. " Well, let us try who can make the biggest fool of our hus bands, and then we'll see which one is the most stupid," they said one day, and to this they both agrecd. When the husband of the first of these women came home from the wood, his wife said : " Goodness gracious ! what ails you ? You must be ill, you look as if you were dying." " Want of something to eat and drink is all that ails me," said the husband.
- But gracious goodness ! screeched the woman, "you are look
ing worse and worse every minute ! You look like a corpse ! You must go to bed ! Dear, oh dear, this can never last long." And in this way she went on, till she got her husband to believe that he was on the point of dying, and she got him to go to bed, folded his hands, and closed his eyes ; next she laid him out and put him into a coffin, and that he might not be smothered while he was there, she had some hoies made in the boards, so he could both breathe and look out. The other woman took a pair of carding-combs and began to card, but she had no wool upon them. The man happened to come in and see this foolish operation. — " There is little help in a spinning-wheel without yarn, but carding-combs without wool is the height of woman's nonsense," said her husband. " Without wool ? " said the woman, " why I have wool ! But you don't see it, for it is of a very fine sort, I can tell you." When she had done the carding, she brought out her spinning-wheel and began spinning. — "But this is foolish work," said the man ; "you are sitting there spinning and spoiling your wheel all the time, since you have got nothing on it!"—" Nothing on it?" said the woman, * but the thrcad is so fine, that it wants better eyes than yours to see it," she said.
