"Well, well, my man," said the farmer, "I can give you work but on only one condition."
"What is that?"
"I cannot abear any high talk on my farm. You must keep cool and not lose your temper."
"Oh, never bother about that," said the youngster, "I never lose my temper, or scarcely ever."
"Ah, but if you do," said the farmer, "I make it a condition that I shall tear a strip of your skin from your nape to your waist; that will make a pretty ribbon to tie around the throat of my dog there."
"That doesn't suit me," was the reply. "So fare thee well, master, I must try another place."
"Keep cool, keep cool," said the farmer. "I am a just man; what's good for the man I consider good for the master. So if I should lose my temper I am quite willing that you should take the ribbon of flesh from my back."
"Oh, if that's so," said the youngster, "I'll agree to stay. But we must have it in black and white."
So they sent for the notary and wrote it all down that if either lost his temper he should also lose a strip of skin from his back. But the eldest son had not been in the house a week when the master gave him so hard a task that he lost his temper and had to give up a strip of skin from his back. So he went home and told his brothers about it.
Well, the brothers were savage at hearing what he had suffered. And the second son went to the same man in the hope of getting revenge for his brother. But the same thing happened to him, and he had to come with a strip of skin from his back like his elder brother.