_ THE SERPENT-WIFE, 105

lady leapt out of it. The labourer forthwith took
and married her; and now he began to look out for
a place to build him a hut upon. His master gave
him a place where he might build his hut, and his
wife helped him so much with the building of it that
it seemed to him as if he himself never laid a hand
to it. His hut grew up as quick as thought, and
it contained everything that they wanted. ‘The
man could not understand it; he could only walk
about and wonder at it. Wherever he looked there
was everything quite spick and span and ready for
use: none in the whole village had a better house
than «he:

And so he might have lived in all peace and
prosperity to the end of his days had not his desires
outstripped his deserts.) He had three fields of
standing corn, and when he came home one day his
labourers said to him: “Thy corn is not gathered
in yet, though it is standing all ripe on its stalks.”
Now the season was getting on, and for all the care
and labour of his wife, the corn was still standing in
“the field. “Why, what’s the meaning of this ?”
thought he. Then in his anger he cried: “T see
how it is. Once a serpent, always a serpent!” He
was quite beside himself all the way home, and was
very wroth with his wife because of the corn.

When he got home he went straight to his chamber