“Listen,” said the cobbler, who was anxious to put an end to the quarrel; “I have an idea. We cannot keep our neighbour’s frying-pan for ever. Whichever of us speaks first, on no matter what subject, must take back the frying-pan.”
“Agreed,” said his wife. She pursed up her lips and clenched her teeth, as much as to say: “Wild horses will not drag a word out of me.”
The next day the neighbours knocked at the door and asked if they could have the frying-pan. Neither vouchsafed an answer. Then they asked the wife, and her only reply was to turn her spinning-wheel more vigorously. Not a word escaped her lips, except a sound which resembled the noise made by young chicks:
“Sjip, sjip, sjip, sjip, sjip.”
Then they asked the cobbler, who replied by hammering so loudly on a pair of soles that, unable to stand the noise, they shrugged their shoulders and went out.
The same thing happened to the customers.
The rumour soon spread in the village that the cobbler and his wife had been bewitched.
There was no time to be lost; their friends went to the exorcist to free them from the spell.
The charlatan, with incantations, prepared for the ceremony by crossing himself and sprinkling holy water.
In spite of all his efforts he was no more successful than the other villagers. He only heard the woman say, “Sjip, sjip, sjip,” and the man tapping with the hammer.