Grimm's Household Tales

In a certain village there once lived a man and his wife, and the wife was so idle that she would never work at anything; whatever her husband gave her to spin, she did not finish, and what she did spin she did not wind, but let it all lie entangled in a heap. If the man scolded her, she always had a quick answer and said, “Well, how should I wind it, when I have no reel? Just go into the forest and get me one.” “If that is all,” said the man, “then I will go into the forest and get some wood for making reels.” Then the woman was afraid that if he had the wood, he would make a reel of it for her, and she would have to wind her yarn and then begin to spin again. She thought about it for a little while, and then a lucky idea occurred to her, and she secretly followed the man into the forest, and when he had climbed into a tree to choose and cut the wood, she crept into the thicket below, where he could not see her, and cried,

“Whoever cuts wood for reels will die,
And whoever winds will perish.”

The man listened, laid down his ax for a moment, and began to consider what that could mean. “Hey,” he said at last, “what can that have been? My ears must have been ringing; I won’t alarm myself for nothing.” So he seized the ax again and began to chop. Then again a cry came from below:

“Whoever cuts wood for reels will die,
And whoever winds will perish.”

He stopped, felt afraid and alarmed, and thought over what had happened. But when a few moments had passed, he took heart again, and a third time he stretched out his hand for the ax and began to cut. But someone called out a third time and said loudly,

“Whoever cuts wood for reels will die,
And whoever winds will perish.”

That was enough for him; he had lost all desire to go on, so he hastily climbed down the tree and set out for home. The woman ran along side paths as fast as she could to get home first. When he entered the parlor, she put on an innocent look as if nothing had happened and said, “Well, have you brought a nice piece of wood for reels?” “No,” he said, “I see very well that winding won’t do,” and he told her what had happened to him in the forest, and from that time on he left her in peace about it. Nevertheless, after some time the man began to complain again about the disorder in the house. “Wife,” he said, “it is really a shame that the spun yarn should lie there all entangled!” “I’ll tell you what,” she said, “since we still can’t get a reel, go up into the loft, and I will stand down below and throw the yarn up to you, and you will throw it down to me, and so we will get a skein after all.” “Yes, that will do,” said the man. So they did that, and when it was done, he said, “The yarn is in skeins; now it must be boiled.” The woman was distressed again. She did say, “Yes, we will boil it early tomorrow morning,” but she was secretly contriving another trick.

Early in the morning she got up, lit a fire, and put the kettle on, but instead of the yarn she put in a lump of tow and let it boil. After that she went to the man, who was still lying in bed, and said to him, “I just have to go out. You must get up and look after the yarn that is in the kettle on the fire, but you must be on hand at once; remember that, for if the rooster should happen to crow while you are not attending to the yarn, it will turn into tow.” The man was willing and took good care not to delay. He got up as quickly as he could and went into the kitchen. But when he reached the kettle and peeped in, he saw, to his horror, nothing but a lump of tow. Then the poor man was as quiet as a mouse, thinking that he had neglected it and was to blame, and from then on he said no more about yarn and spinning. But you yourself must admit that she was an odious woman!