Household stories from the Land of Hofer; or, Popular Myths of Tirol

by Rachel Harriette Busk

Katharina urged her promise to her husband, and for a long time refused to break it; but the wily peasant contrived to work on her vanity so effectually, that at last, in an evil moment, she consented this once to give her advice, exacting first a promise he would never tell any one she had done so.

The case was this. Her friend’s Senner[68] had been visited in the night by a Saligen Fraulein[69], who had promised to milk his cow for him, and every one knew that when a Saligen Fraulein milked a cow, it gave three times as much milk as the wont. But being a poor man, and having only one cow, he eked out his living by taking in cows to graze on his allotment; and he also only had one milking-pail. The Saligen Fraulein, therefore, when she had milked his pail full, had been obliged to take a pail belonging to the man to whom the other cows belonged, who was a rich man, and had a store of all sorts of utensils. But the milk being in one of his pails, his Senner swore that it had been milked from one of his cows, and refused to give it up, though he had no right to it whatever; and he had declined payment for the use of the pail.

Though the case had been argued since the first thing that morning, they were no nearer arriving at a decision. Now the disputants had been ordered to stand back while another case was called, but it would come on again immediately; and in the meantime the poor peasant entreated Katharina’s counsel as his only chance of rescuing his milk before it turned sour.

“I see one means, I think, of bringing him to his senses,” said Katharina, after she had yielded to her poor friend’s importunity. “When your case is called on again, show as much indifference about the result as you have hitherto shown anxiety; then tell your adversary that during this interval, which you spent in the shade of the woods, a Saligen Fraulein had appeared to you and advised you not to use any of the milk the one who appeared to the Senner had milked for you, because she was a mischievous one, and the milk she milked was bewitched, so that all who drank of it, or of any milk mixed with it—were it only one drop of it—would be turned into asses. Then add, ‘But of course, if your pailful is really the milk of your own cow, you have nothing to fear; so there’s an end of the dispute.’ Then he will probably be so frightened by the threat of this calamity that he will probably have nothing more to do with the pail; and that will suffice to prove that it is not the milk of his cow, and expose his deceit.”

The peasant was so delighted with the wise counsel that he hardly knew how to thank his benefactress, and readily gave her the promise she required of not letting any one know he had even seen her.

He had scarcely got back to the court when the case was called on again. The peasant carried out the advice he had received with great shrewdness, and found it answer completely. Every body applauded the craft by which he had confounded his would-be oppressor, and the judge himself was very much pleased to see the end of such a troublesome case.

A few minutes’ thought, however, suggested to him that there was more than a peasant’s shrewdness in the matter, and he was not slow to discern the guiding of his wife in it; so he called the peasant apart, and had little difficulty in wringing from the simple clown a confession of who had been his prompter.

The discovery made the judge set off homeward in great anger. His wife had broken her promise—the fundamental condition of their union; and he would have nothing more to say to her! Out of his house she must go, whithersoever she would, but far away out of his sight.

Katharina, who had so often calmed her father’s anger by her prudent reasoning, exerted herself to the utmost to bring her husband back to a better mind; but in vain. And all the concessions he would yield were, to consent that they should eat their last dinner together, and that she should take away with her one thing out of the house, whatever she had most fancy for. It was not much to obtain when required to part for ever from her home, and her hopes, and all to which she had grown united and attached—but it was all she could obtain.

Dinner-time came, and the judge, who was devotedly fond of his wife, seemed lost in sorrow at the calamity about to befall him; still he would not yield. Though she caressed him and entreated him to forgive her, he still said he could not depart from his word, and he would not allow her to speak of it. They sat down to their silent meal; and as the time of separation drew nearer he grew more sombre and sad, and at last determined to console himself with the red wine that sparkled by his side. Katharina encouraged him to drink, and as his bottle got exhausted deftly replaced it by a full one, so that he was quite unconscious of the depth of his potations.