Hardly had he said these words before the second son came in, saying, “Dear father, I think it is already time that you were looking out for a wife for me.”
A moment later came in the third son, asking, “Dear father, don’t you think it is high time that you should find me a wife?” In like manner came the fourth and fifth, until the whole hundred had made a similar request. All of them wished to marry, and desired their father to find wives for them as soon as he could. [[105]]
The old man was not a little troubled at these requests; he said, however, to his sons, “Very well, my sons, I have nothing to say against your marrying; there is, however, I foresee, one great difficulty in the way. There are one hundred of you asking for wives, and I hardly think we can find one hundred marriageable girls in all the fifteen villages which are in our neighbourhood.”
To this the sons, however, answered, “Don’t be anxious about that, but mount your horse and take in your sack sufficient engagement-cakes. You must take, also, a stick in your hand so that you can cut a notch in it for every girl you see. It does not signify whether she be handsome or ugly, or lame or blind, just cut a notch in your stick for every one you meet with.”
The old man said, “Very wisely spoken, my sons! I will do exactly as you tell me.”
Accordingly he mounted his horse, took a sack full of cakes on his shoulder and a long stick in his hand, and started off at once to beat up the neighbourhood for girls to marry his sons.
The old man had travelled from village to village during a whole month, and whenever he had seen a girl he cut a notch in his stick. But he was getting pretty well tired, and he began to count how many notches he had already made. When he had counted them carefully over and over again, to be certain that he had counted all, he could only make out seventy-four so that still twenty-six were wanting to complete the [[106]]number required. He was, however, so weary with his month’s ride, that he determined to return home. As he rode along, he saw a priest driving oxen yoked to a plough, and seemingly very deep in anxious thought about something. Now the old man wondered a little to see the priest ploughing his own corn-fields without even a boy to help him, he therefore shouted to ask him why he drove his oxen himself. The priest, however, did not even turn his head to see who called to him, so intent was he in urging on his oxen and in guiding his plough.
The old man thought he had not spoken loud enough, so he shouted out again as loud as he could, “Stop your oxen a little, and tell me why you are ploughing yourself without even a lad to help you, and this, too, on a holy-day?”
Now the priest—who was in a perspiration with his hard work—answered testily, “I conjure you by your old age, leave me in peace! I cannot tell you my ill-luck.”
At this answer, however, the old man was only the more curious, and persisted all the more earnestly in asking questions to find out why the priest ploughed on a Saint’s day. At last the priest, tired with his importunity, sighed deeply and said, “Well, if you will know: I am the only man in my household, and God has blessed me with a hundred daughters!”