One Sunday, Trude, feeling very tired, said she would stay at home and rest, while her husband went alone to the village church. The pastor’s sermon that Sunday was on charity, and Geir returned home greatly delighted with what he had heard. In the evening, as they were sitting beside the hearth, his wife asked him what the sermon had been about.
“Oh,” said Geir, “it was the best sermon I have ever heard. The pastor said that, whoever gave away what he possessed, it would be returned to him an hundredfold, and I mean to try it.”
“Ah,” said his wife, shaking her head, “I don’t think he can quite have meant that. You must have misunderstood him.”
But Geir maintained that he was right, and so they went on disputing for more than an hour without either convincing the other.
The next morning, the old man hastened into the forest, and getting together a lot of woodcutters, he persuaded them to help him to build a hundred stalls. His wife grew very angry, and scolded him well for his folly, as she called it; but he turned a deaf ear to all her remonstrance, and continued his work. When the stalls were ready, Geir sat down and began to think who would be the best person to give his cow to, and so get a hundred cows in return.
“Surely, there is no one so rich as the king,” soliloquized Geir; “he could easily give me a hundred cows for my one cow.” And thus thinking, he led forth his cow, despite all the angry protestations of his wife.
When he had gone about halfway, a tremendous storm arose. Heavy black clouds rolled up from the north, the lightning flashed, and he could hardly stand up under the drenching showers of rain and hail, whilst the cow, terrified at the noise and darkness, struggled frantically to get away.
“Alas,” sighed the old man, “I fear I shall have to let her go, for I cannot hold on much longer. It is so dark, I cannot see a step before me, nor do I know in which direction to travel! Alas, alas! it will be a wonder if I ever reach home alive!”
While he was thus wandering helplessly about in the dark, bewailing himself, and not knowing which way to turn, he suddenly saw an old woman standing before him, with a large sack on her shoulders.
“What are you doing out in such weather with your cow?” she asked.