The Flail From Heaven

by The Brothers Grimm

　　

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A countryman was once going out to plough with a pair of oxen. When he gotto the field, both the animals' horns began to grow, and went on growing,and when he wanted to go home they were so big that the oxen could not getthrough the gateway for them. By good luck a butcher came by just then,and he delivered them over to him, and made the bargain in this way, thathe should take the butcher a measure of turnip-seed, and then the butcherwas to count him out a Brabant thaler for every seed. I call that wellsold! The peasant now went home, and carried the measure of turnip-seedto him on his back. On the way, however, he lost one seed out of thebag. The butcher paid him justly as agreed on, and if the peasant had notlost the seed, he would have had one thaler the more. In the meantime,when he went on his way back, the seed had grown into a tree which reachedup to the sky. Then thought the peasant, "As thou hast the chance, thoumust just see what the angels are doing up there above, and for oncehave them before thine eyes." So he climbed up, and saw that the angelsabove were threshing oats, and he looked on. While he was thus watchingthem, he observed that the tree on which he was standing, was beginningto totter; he peeped down, and saw that someone was just going to cutit down. "If I were to fall down from hence it would be a bad thing,"thought he, and in his necessity he did not know how to save himselfbetter than by taking the chaff of the oats which lay there in heaps,and twisting a rope of it. He likewise snatched a hoe and a flail whichwere lying about in heaven, and let himself down by the rope. But hecame down on the earth exactly in the middle of a deep, deep hole. So itwas a real piece of luck that he had brought the hoe, for he hoed himselfa flight of steps with it, and mounted up, and took the flail with himas a token of his truth, so that no one could have any doubt of his story.

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