“One of you axes fell the trees, while the other cuts them up into billets.”
Well, the firewood was cut up and piled on the sledge. Then says the fool:
“Now then, one of you axes! go and cut me a cudgel,[353] as heavy a one as I can lift.”
The axe went and cut him a cudgel, and the cudgel came and lay on top of the load.
The fool took his seat and drove off. He drove by the town, but the townspeople had met together and had been looking out for him for ever so long. So they stopped the fool, laid hands upon him, and began pulling him about. Says the fool—
“By the Pike’s command, at my request, go, O cudgel, and bestir thyself.”
Out jumped the cudgel, and took to thumping and smashing, and knocked over ever such a lot of people. There they lay on the ground, strewed about like so many sheaves of corn. The fool got clear of them and drove home, heaped up the wood, and then lay down on the stove.
Meanwhile, the townspeople got up a petition against him, and denounced him to the King, saying:
“Folks say there’s no getting hold of him the way we tried;[354] we must entice him by cunning, and the best way of all will be to promise him a red shirt, and a red caftan, and red boots.”
So the King’s runners came for the fool.