"'Oh!' said the man, 'goodman Chanticleer has fallen into the ale-vat and drowned himself; dame Partlet sits sighing and sobbing in the ingle; the Handquern grinds and groans; the Chair cracks and creaks; the Door slams and bangs; the Stove smokes and steams; the Axe rives and rends; the Aspen quivers and quakes; the Birds are pilling and plucking all their feathers off, and that's why I am tearing the besoms to bits.'
"'So, so!' said the goody; 'then I'll dash the porridge over all the walls;' and she did it; for she took one spoonful after the other and dashed it against the walls, so that no one could see what they were made of for very porridge.
"That was how they drank the burial ale after goodman Chanticleer, who fell into the brewing-vat and was drowned; and, if you don't believe it, you may set off thither and have a taste both of the ale and the porridge."
When Christine ended, I did not tell them what I could now tell them, that this story of The Death of Chanticleer is mutatis mutandis, the very same story as one in Grimm's Tales, and another in the Scotch collection of Robert Chambers. But alas! I heard The Death of Chanticleer up on the Fjeld long before those Scotch Stories appeared in print, and so, as some of these stories say, I could tell them nothing about it.
Karin was not so good a story-teller as Christine, but she still told her story well. Besides, it was harder to tell, and required an effort of memory, like that needed in our This is the House that Jack built. The Greedy Cat has a wildness of its own, and is full of humour. Here it is—
THE GREEDY CAT.
"Once on a time there was a man who had a cat, and she was so awfully big, and such a beast to eat, he couldn't keep her any longer. So she was to go down to the river with a stone round her neck, but before she started she was to have a meal of meat. So the goody set before her a bowl of porridge and a little trough of fat. That she crammed into her, and ran off and jumped through the window. Outside stood the goodman by the barn door, threshing.
"'Good day, goodman,' said the cat.
"'Good day, pussy,' said the goodman; 'have you had any food to-day?'