‘Hans’ luck has changed!’ the neighbours said, and they scoffed at him no more.
But good luck itself does not last for ever, and after three years of plenty came a bad one for all in those parts. There was a long and unusual drought, followed by so much rain that the roots rotted in the ground, and sickness spread amongst sheep and oxen. Hans lost all that he had re-gained, and to add to his misfortunes, he chopped his hand instead of a log of wood, and could do no work for weeks. He was in despair, and the old blind woman beside his hearth wept and wailed from morn till eve.
‘I would I were dead,’ she moaned. ‘I am a useless burden, for I cannot even knit. My store of wool is exhausted, and we have no money to buy more.’
‘Dear Mother,’ said Elsa tenderly, ‘who has a greater right than you to the last penny that Hans possesses? You carried him on your breast when he was small and helpless, and have loved him faithfully all these years!’
But the mother turned her face to the wall and wrung her idle hands.
Then Elsa sold the ring that had been her lover’s gift in order to buy for her soft white bread and warming cordials, and wool wherewith to ply her needles. As she returned home with her basket, grieving to think of the pain of those she loved, a Moss-woman accosted her in the forest.
‘I have nought for my children to eat,’ she said. And Elsa, pitying her the more that she herself was hungry, gave her a share of what she had, even to a skein of the wool, that she might weave a coat for her crying babe.
‘Wait for me here!’ cried the Moss-woman earnestly, and Elsa leaned sadly against a tree, too weary to be surprised. In a moment or two the Moss-woman returned, carrying a grey ball of wool and some chips of wood.
‘Give the wool to the old crone who weeps by your hearth,’ said the little thing, ‘and the chips to Hans. He is lucky in his wife, if in nought else!’
So saying, she disappeared, and Elsa went quickly home. Thinking to win a laugh from her husband, she opened her apron to show him the Moss-woman’s gifts, and, to her amazement, found that the chips had turned to yellow gold, and the little grey ball of wool into a large one of fleecy whiteness, so soft and thick that it felt like velvet! The golden chips stocked the farm again, for they were of pure metal, and weighty, and the ball of white wool was never exhausted during the old woman’s life time. She knitted away until her hundredth year, and when, long afterward, the summons came also for Hans and Elsa, in their turn, their children had good cause to bless the name of the Moss-woman.”