Now it was near dinner time, and he had not even got butter yet. So he
thought he'd best boil the porridge, and he filled the pot with water,
and hung it over the fire. When he had done that, he thought the cow
might perhaps fall off the thatch and break her legs or her neck. So he
got up on the house to tie her up. One end of the rope he made fast to
the cow's neck, and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round
his own waist. He had to make haste, for the water now began to boil in
the pot, and he had still to grind the oatmeal.
So he began to grind away; but while he was hard at it, down fell the
cow off the housetop after all, and as she fell she dragged the man up
the chimney by the rope. There he stuck fast. And as for the cow, she
hung halfway down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth, for she
could neither get down nor up.
And now the goody had waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her
husband to come and call them home to dinner, but never a call they had.
At last she thought she'd waited long enough and went home.
When she got there and saw the cow hanging in such an ugly place, she
ran up and cut the rope in two with her scythe. But as she did this,
down came her husband out of the chimney, and so when his old dame came
inside the kitchen, there she found him standing on his head in the
porridge pot.
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