So when he had walked on a bit, he came to a smithy, and he turned in and asked the smith if he’d be good enough to crack that nut for him.
“Aye, that’ll be an easy job”, said the smith, and took his smallest hammer, laid the nut on the anvil, and gave it a blow, but it wouldn’t break.
So he took another hammer a little bigger, but that wasn’t heavy enough either.
Then he took one bigger still, but it was still the same story; and so the smith got wroth, and grasped his great sledge-hammer.
“Now, I’ll crack you to bits”, he said, and let drive at the nut with all his might and main. And so the nut flew to pieces with a bang that blew off half the roof of the smithy, and the whole house creaked and groaned as though it were ready to fall.
“Why! if I don’t think the Deil must have been in that nut”, said the smith.
“So he was; you’re quite right”, said the lad, as he went away laughing.
THE COCK AND HEN A-NUTTING
Once on a time the cock and the hen went out into the hazel-wood to pick nuts; and so the hen got a nutshell in her throat, and lay on her back, flapping her wings.
Off went the cock to fetch water for her; so he came to the Spring and said: