What do you want?"
"Oh," answered the lad, "I only wished to ask you to be so good as to
let me have back the meal you took from me on the storehouse steps, for
we haven't much to live on; and if you're to go on snapping up the
morsel we have, there'll be nothing for it but to starve."
"I haven't your meal," said the North Wind; "but since you are in such
need, I'll give you a table cloth which will get you everything you
want. You need only say, 'Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds
of good dishes!'"
With this the lad was well content. But, as the way was long he could
not get home in one day, so he turned into an inn on the way; and when
they were going to sit down to supper he laid the cloth on the table
which stood in the corner, and said,--
"Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes."
He had scarcely said this before the cloth did as it was bid, and all
who stood by thought it a fine thing, but most of all the landlord. So,
when all were fast asleep, at dead of night, he took the lad's cloth,
and put another like it in its stead. But this could not so much as
serve up a bit of dry bread.
When the lad woke he took the cloth and went off with it, and that day
he got home to his mother.
"Now," said he, "I've been to the North Wind's house, and a good fellow
he is, for he gave me this cloth and when I only say to it, 'Cloth,
spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes,' I get every
sort of food I please.
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