The merchant bought the wonderful knife, saying that his wife, too, needed a lesson sometimes. When the merchant reached home, his wife asked where he had been. He told her to be silent and mind her own business. ‘If you are not quiet I will cut your throat.’ The woman looked at him with astonishment, and wondered whether he had gone out of his mind. The merchant threw down his wife, and cut her throat. All the neighbours flocked in, and raised a great cry. The merchant said: ‘What if I have killed my wife? I can bring her to life again.’ The neighbours stood by while he muttered the invocations he had learnt, but he could not raise her. Then he flew to the countryman, tied his hands, and dragged him into the forest, saying: ‘I wish to prolong your sufferings, and will not kill you at once. I shall starve you, drag you about in the woods, and, when I have worn you out with tortures, I shall throw you into the sea.’ On the road there was a town, in which a king had just died, and his funeral was then taking place. Having bound the countryman to a tree in the depths of the forest, the merchant returned to the town to see the royal funeral. Just then, a shepherd happened to drive his flock near the tree to which the countryman was tied. Seeing the shepherd a little way off, the countryman began to shout: ‘I will not be king! I will not be king! No! No! No!’ The shepherd came up and asked what was wrong. The countryman replied: ‘You know, brother, that the king is dead in the town: they want me to take his place, but I will not, for I have been king twice, and know what it is. Ah, brother! one has so many cares, so much work, that one’s head swims. I had rather be tied to this tree than consent to be king.’ The shepherd thought for a moment, and replied: ‘I, brother, would give anything in the world to have a trial of the life of a king.’ ‘I gladly give you my place, but, so that people may not know, put on my clothes, and I shall bind you to the tree, and by to-morrow you shall be king.’ The shepherd gladly gave him his flock, and took his place at the tree.
As soon as the countryman was free, he drove away the flock.
When it was quite dark, the merchant appeared, loosed his victim, and drove him on. When they came to the steep seashore, the shepherd saw that the merchant wished to drown him, and cried: ‘Do not drown me! I had rather consent to be king.’ The merchant thought his prisoner had lost his wits through fatigue and ill-treatment; without more ado he threw him into the sea.
A fortnight later, the merchant was travelling on business, when he met on the road the same countryman whom he, as he thought, had drowned, and who was now driving a flock. ‘What do I see!’ cried the merchant. ‘Are you there? Did I not drown you in the sea?’
‘My benefactor!’ replied the countryman. ‘I wish you would drown me again. You cannot imagine what a quantity of cattle there is down there at the bottom of the sea. It is a pity I had no stick with me, for I could not drive out more than these with my hands.’
The merchant besought the countryman, saying: ‘You have ruined me. The cat, the pot, the hare, the knife, have all cost money; thanks to you, I am a beggar and a widower. If you remember the place where I threw you into the sea, drown me there, but let me have a stick, so that I may repair my fortune.’ To get rid of the troublesome merchant, the countryman agreed to fulfil his request, and so drowned him with a very long switch in his hand.[2]
[1] Cf. Jacobs: More English Fairy Tales, p. 209, and note on p. 242.
[2] Cf. the last incident with the end of ‘Little Fairly,’ in Samuel Lover’s Legends and Stories of Ireland.