“Why, this sort of good luck: whatever you say, that shall be done. Say, for instance, ‘By the Pike’s command, at my request, go home, ye pails, and be set in your places.’”
As soon as the fool had said this, the pails immediately went home of their own accord and became set in their places. The sisters-in-law looked and wondered.
“What sort of a fool is this!” they say. “Why, he’s so knowing, you see, that his pails have come home and gone to their places of their own accord!”
The fool came back and lay down on the stove. Again did his brothers’ wives begin saying to him—
“What are you lying on the stove for, fool? there’s no wood for the fire; go and fetch some.”
The fool took two axes and got into a sledge, but without harnessing a horse to it.
“By the Pike’s command,” he says, “at my request, drive, into the forest, O sledge!”
Away went the sledge at a rattling pace, as if urged on by some one. The fool had to pass by a town, and the people he met were jammed into corners by his horseless sledge in a way that was perfectly awful. They all began crying out:
“Stop him! Catch him!”
But they couldn’t lay hands on him. The fool drove into the forest, got out of the sledge, sat down on a log, and said—