So saying he placed the jug in his lunch-bag, and came home leading the oxen.
“Wife! O wife!” he exclaimed; “lead the oxen to the stable, give them hay, and take the plough in. I will go to the judge and come back.”
His wife, a shrewd woman, saw that there was something in the lunch-bag which her husband did not put down. It must be something which she thought she ought to know, so she said to him:
“It is not my business to take care of your oxen. I have hardly time enough to drive and milk the cows, and care for the sheep. You put in your oxen and plough, and go wherever you please.”
The man, putting the lunch-bag by the door, began to attend to his oxen. While he was thus occupied, the woman opened the bag, and seeing the jug full of gold, took it out and put a round stone in its place. The man then took the bag to the judge, and placing it before him, said:
“I have brought you this as a present.” On opening it they saw that it was a stone. The judge was angry with the man, but thinking that he might after all have a secret, he cast him into prison. He put two spies in his cell to watch the man and report whatever he did or said. The man began to meditate in the jail, motioning with his hands:
“The jug was as big as this, its mouth as wide as this, its belly as large as this, and the gold in it as much as this.”
The spies reported to the judge that the man was making certain gestures, but not speaking. The judge called the man and asked what it was he was showing with his hands. Mind entered the man’s brain, and he answered:
“I was thinking to myself that you had a head as big as this, a neck as thick as this, a beard as long as this. And I was asking myself whose pate and beard was the larger, yours or our goat’s?”
Thereupon the judge was very angry and ordered his men to beat the farmer to death. The thrashing was hardly begun when the man exclaimed: