So the mother went down to see why she was so long, but the moment she came into the cellar she, too, began to cry; so that the wine still went on running over.
Then the father said: ‘What can the girl and her mother both be doing so long down in the cellar? I must go and see.’
So the father went down into the cellar; but the moment he got into the cellar he, too, began to cry, and could do nothing for crying; so the wine still went on running over.
Then he who had come to seek a wife said: ‘What can these people all be doing so long down in the cellar?’ So he, too, went down to see, and found them all crying in the cellar and the wine running over. Only when the wine was all run out they left off crying and came upstairs again.
Then the betrothal and the marriage were happily celebrated.
One day after they were married the husband went into the market to buy meat, and he bought a large provision because he had invited a friend to dinner. When the wife saw him buy such a quantity of meat she began to cry, saying: ‘What can we do with such a lot of meat?’
‘Oh, never mind, don’t make a misery of it,’ said the husband; ‘put it behind you.’[4]
The simple wife took the meat and went home, saying to her parents,[5] and crying the while: ‘My husband says I am to put all this meat behind me! Do tell me what can I do?’
‘You can’t put the whole lot of it behind you, that’s certain,’ replied the equally simple mother; ‘but we can manage it between us.’
Then she took the meat and put all the hard, bony part on one chair, where she made the father sit down on it; all the fat, skinny part she put on another chair, and made the wife sit down on it; and the fleshy, meaty part she put on another chair, and sat down on that herself.