“The Husband Who Was to Mind the House.” East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North, Asbjørnsen, Peter Christen, Jørgen Engebretsen Moe, and Sir George Webbe Dasent, New York: G. H. Doran Company, 19--, pp. 75-78.

Tale Summary

An ill-tempered man who never thinks his wife does her housework well comes home one night, angry with his wife. His wife suggests that the next day, they will swap roles; she will go out and mow the fields, and he will take care of the house. The husband eagerly agrees. The next morning, his wife goes out with a scythe to cut the hay.

The husband spends some time churning butter, but eventually becomes thirsty and goes to the cellar for some ale. Before he can have a drink, the pig enters the kitchen, and the man hurries up the stairs to find that the pig has knocked over the churn. The man, in a fury, kicks the pig and leaves it for dead on the doorstep. He runs back to the cellar but finds that all of the ale has dripped out of the cask.

The man refills the churn and begins again, but realizes that the milking cow hasn’t been fed yet. He has the idea to bring the cow onto the sod roof of the house to graze. He brings the churn outside with him so it will not be knocked over again. While drawing water from the well for the cow, he accidentally dumps all of the cream in the churn into the well.

The man heats water over the fire to make porridge for dinner. He leaves to tie up the cow so she does not fall off the sod roof and break her neck. He ties one end of the rope around the cow’s neck, passes the rope through the chimney, and ties the other end around his thigh. As the man begins to grind the oatmeal, the cow falls off the house. This pulls the man up into the chimney.

The man’s wife finally comes home, having waited a long time for him to call her home for dinner. She finds the cow dangling from the roof by a rope, and cuts the rope to free the cow. This causes her husband to fall, and she finds him, with his head down, in the porridge pot.