e pot."

"Well, I couldn't get back before," said the man. "I have had a good
many things to look after, and I've had a long way to walk as well; but
now I'll show you something," said he, and put the quern on the table.
He asked it first to grind candles, then a cloth, and then food and
beer, and everything else that was good for Christmas cheer; and as he
spoke the quern brought them forth. The woman crossed herself time after
time and wanted to know where her husband had got the quern from; but
this he would not tell her.

"It does not matter where I got it from; you see the quern is good and
the mill stream is not likely to freeze," said the man. So he ground
food and drink and all good things during Christmas; and the third day
he invited his friends, as he wanted to give them a feast. When the rich
brother saw all that was in the house, he became both angry and furious,
for he begrudged his brother everything.

"On Christmas Eve he was so needy that he came to me and asked for a
trifle in heaven's name; and now he gives a feast, as if he were both a
count and a king," said the brother. "Where did you get all your riches
from?" he said to his brother.

"From just behind the door," he answered, for he did not care to tell
his brother much about it. But later in the evening, when he had drunk a
little freely, he could no longer resist, but brought out the quern.

"There you see that which has brought me all my riches," he said, and so
he let the quern grind first one thing and then another.

When the brother saw this, he was determined to have the quern at all
cost, and at last it was settled he should have it, but three hundred
dollars was to be the price of it. The brother was, however, to keep it
till the harvest began; "for if I keep it so long, I can grind out food
for many years to come," he thought.

During that time you may be sure the quern did not rust, and when the
harvest began the rich brother got it; but the other had taken great
care not to show him how to use it.

It was evening when the rich brother got the quern home, and in the
morning he asked his wife to go out and help the haymakers; he would get
the breakfast ready himself to-day, he said.

When it was near breakfast time he put the quern on the breakfast table.

"Grind herrings and broth, and do it quickly and well," said the man,
and the quern began to bring forth herrings and broth, and filled first
all the dishes and tubs, and af