But never a bit of dry bread did the cloth serve
“Well,” said the lad, “there’s no help for it but to go to the North Wind again;” and away he went.
So late in the afternoon he came to where the North Wind lived.
“Good evening!” said the lad.
“Good evening!” said the North Wind. “I want my rights for that meal of ours which you took,” said the lad; “for, as for that cloth I got, it isn’t worth a penny.”
“I’ve got no meal,” said the North Wind; “but yonder you have a ram which coins nothing but golden ducats as soon as you say to it—
“‘Ram, ram! Make money!’”
So the lad thought this a fine thing; but as it was too far to get home that day, he stopped for the night at the same inn where he had slept before.
Before he called for anything, he tried the truth of what the North Wind had said of the ram, and found it all right; but when the landlord saw that, he thought it was a famous ram, and, when the lad had fallen asleep, he took another which couldn’t coin gold ducats, and changed the two.
Next morning off went the lad; and when he got home to his mother, he said—“After all, the North Wind is a jolly fellow; for now he has given me a ram which can coin golden ducats if I only say, ‘Ram, ram! Make money!’”