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away. The old man felt his face and, lo! the won he had had for years was clean gone, not even a trace of it being perceptible on the smooth even surface. He went back to his home forgetting even to cut the wood he had come for. When the old woman his wife asked him what wonderful thing had happened him he told her it was so and so. “What a vexatious affair” said she.
Next door lived a certain old man who had a big wen on the left side of his face. This old man observing that the other had lost his wen, thought it very queer and asked him about it, saying:—“How did you come to get rid of your wen? What doctor took it off for you? Kindly tell me, for I want to have this wen of mine taken off.” “It was n’t taken off by a doctor at all,” said the other, “it happened on this wise,” and he told him how it had been taken away by the elves. “I’ll have mine taken off in the same way” thought he, and he questioned the first old man closely, who told him the whole circumstances. Following out what he had heard he went and waited inside the hollow tree, and true enough, just as he had been told, the elves cane, and spreading themselves all about began to amuse themselves drinking saké. Then they said “Has the old man come who was here? The other old man swung himself out, though very much afraid be was. Then the elves said “Yes, the old man has come; here he is. “Come here, dance, quick,” said the elf on the thwart seat. Now this old man was not fit to be compared to the former one, and after making an awkward attempt at a dance the elf on the thwart seat said to him “you dance very badly this time; ever so many times worse than you danced before. Let him have back the wen we took from him as pledge.” Hereupon an elf from the far end came forward saying “Here you may have your pledge, the wen, back again”, and with that he threw it at him and it stuck on his other cheek, so that he now had a wen on both sides of his face.
Moral. People ought not to feel envious.
