There lived in a certain village a poor old woman who had collected a mess of beans, and was going to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and, in order to make it burn better, she put in a handful of straw. When the beans began to bubble in the pot, one of them fell out and lay, never noticed, near a straw which was already there; soon a red-hot coal jumped out of the fire and joined the pair. The straw began first, and said,
"Dear friends, how do you come here?" The coal answered,
"I jumped out of the fire by great good luck, or I should certainly have met with my death. I should have been burned to ashes." The bean said,