ow, when his rich brother saw all that was on
the table, and all that was behind in the larder, he grew quite spiteful
and wild, for he couldn't bear that his brother should have anything.

"Twas only on Christmas eve," he said to the rest, "he was in such
straits that he came and asked for a morsel of food in God's name, and
now he gives a feast as if he were count or king;" and he turned to his
brother and said:

"But whence, in Hell's name, have you got all this wealth?"

"From behind the door," answered the owner of the quern, for he didn't
care to let the cat out of the bag. But later on in the evening, when he
had got a drop too much, he could keep his secret no longer, and brought
out the quern and said:

"There, you see what has gotten me all this wealth;" and so he made the
quern grind all kind of things. When his brother saw it, he set his
heart on having the quern, and, after a deal of coaxing, he got it; but
he had to pay three hundred dollars for it, and his brother bargained to
keep it till hay-harvest, for he thought, if I keep it till then, I can
make it grind meat and drink that will last for years. So you may fancy
the quern didn't grow rusty for want of work, and when hay-harvest came,
the rich brother got it, but the other took care not to teach him how to
handle it.

It was evening when the rich brother got the quern home, and the next
morning he told his wife to go out into the hay-field and toss, while
the mowers cut the grass, and he would stay at home and get the dinner
ready. So, when dinner-time drew near, he put the quern on the kitchen
table and said:

"Grind herrings and broth, and grind them good and fast."

So the quern began to grind herrings and broth; first of all, all the
dishes full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor
was quite covered. Then the man twisted and twirled at the quern to get
it to stop, but for all his twisting and fingering the quern went on
grinding, and in a little while the broth rose so high that the man was
like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the
parlour, but it wasn't long before the quern had ground the parlour full
too, and it was only at the risk of his life that the man could get hold
of the latch of the house door through the stream of broth. When he got
the door open, he ran out and set off down the road, with the stream of
herrings and broth at his heels, roaring like a waterfall over the whole
farm.