“Will you sell her to me?” asked the man.
“What will you give me for her?” asked the little boy.
“I will give you an iron pot,” said the man.
Now, the little boy knew that he ought not to sell the cow for an iron pot, and he quickly said he would not, but as he spoke he heard a tiny voice under the man’s cloak saying: “Buy me! Buy me!” So he told the stranger that he might have the cow.
The man took the rope in his hands, and gave the little boy the iron pot, and he took it and went home again.
“And what did you get for the cow?” asked his mother.
By this time the boy was very much ashamed of having sold the cow for an iron pot, and he hung his head when his mother asked him what he had gotten. They were about to throw the pot away, for, as the mother said, there was nothing to cook in it, when they heard a tiny voice say: “Put me over the fire and put in water.”
So the mother put the little pot over the fire and put in water, which, indeed, was all that she had to put in. And soon the water in the pot began to bubble and to boil, and the little pot said: “I skip! I skip!”
“How far do you skip, little Pot?” asked the mother.
“I skip to the house of the rich man at the top of the hill,” said the pot.