by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 27, 2010

It's a story about a man who "thought that his wife never did enough work in the house." Tired from harvesting, he began "to grumble and scold his wife." The couple decides to switch places, with the wife taking her husband's scythe into the meadow. And the man takes over his wife's chores, starting with churning the butter.

"But after churning for a while, he grew thirsty and went down to the cellar to draw some beer."

While he's in the cellar, there's a domestic catastrophe. The family's pig knocks over the churn, "and was guzzling up the cream that had flowed all over the floor." Then man chases the pig from the kitchen, which causes a second catastrophe. He'd rushed up with the stopper from his beer barrel, and now the cellar floor was covered with beer!

This book has a complicated origin. P. C. Asbjornsen is a Norwegian zoologist, according to the book's jacket, and he collaborated with Norwegian poet theologian named J. E. Moe. Their goal was to publish a classic Norse folk tale for modern audiences, and it was apparently a collaborative effort. To illustrate it they brought in Svend Otto S, who had won an illustrating award from the Danish Ministry of Cultural Affairs, and a Hans Christian Andersen medal in 1987.

To stop animals from raiding his butter churn, he decides to strap it to his back. Unfortunately, when he bends over for a bucket of water - all the butter rolls down his neck! But the man's biggest mistake comes when he realizes there wasn't time to take the cow to the field. So he takes it to the roof - which is covered with sod and long juicy grass.

And to make sure the cow doesn't wander off the edge of the roof, the man ties a long rope around its neck. Then he runs the rope down the chimney, and ties the other end to…his leg. Sure enough, the cow does fall off the roof. And the rope pulls the man's body up into the chimney.

It's a funny story, and I like that it's an authentic folk tale. (There's real farm animals, and none of them talk!) Obviously the story feels a little dated, but it makes the ending surprisingly satisfying. When the man's wife returns with the scythe, she cuts the rope which frees the cow. And it drops the belligerent man down the chimney, into a large pot of oatmeal he'd been cooking.

"Never again did the man complain about the way his wife kept house."

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