InfoNorway is an index of English language pages about Norway.
Follow the links to browse this site for Norway related information, or use the search form to find information directly. Keep your search terms short. One or two words will do.
InfoNorway links to thousands of quality pages related to Norway, all sorted and organized for easy access. Please let us know if you have trouble finding the Norway related information you are searching for. We at InfoNorway are always looking for ways to improve our site, so your comments and suggestions will be received with thanks.
There once was a man who was both bad-tempered and wild, and he always complained that his wife did too little at home. Then one evening, coming home after a day of hay-making, he was swearing and cursing enough to make your ears burn.
"Oh dear, dear me! Don't be so angry," said his wife; "tomorrow I will go out and work so you can stay home and keep house."
Well, the man thought that an excellent idea. And he agreed to this at once.
Early next morning, the wife took the scythe, went out to the fields to work, and left her man at home to keep house. The first thing he wanted to do, was to make some butter; but when he had churned for a while, he worked up a thirst and decided to go down in the basement to pour himself some beer from the beer-keg. But when he was pouring the beer, he heard that the pig was getting into the house. He dropped everything, not thinking to turn off the tap, and rushed upstairs to stop the pig from knocking over the churn; but when he saw that the pig had already knocked it over and was lapping up the cream that was all over the floor, he got so furious that he forgot all about the beer, and chased the pig as best he could. He got hold of it by the door and kicked it so hard it fell lame to the ground. Now, he came to think of the beer, but when he got down in the basement, the beer-keg was empty.
He went at the cow again and filled the churn with cream, and sat down to churn; for he wanted butter ready for dinner. After a while, he thought of the cow and how it hadn't had food or drink, even though it was midday. The field is too far away, he thought, far better to let it up on the grassy roof of the house, for there was plenty of long fresh grass growing there. The house stood on a steep hillside, and he figured that a plank from the hill to the roof would get the cow up. But he didn't dare to let go of the churn, for his baby child was crawling round on the floor, and could easily knock it over. So he strapped the churn to his back; but then, when he went to the well to fetch a bucket of water for the cow, and he bent over to pull up the bucket, the cream ran out of the churn and down his neck.
Dinner time was approaching, and he still had no butter; so he figured he'd better make some porridge, and hung up a pot of water over the fire. Having done this, he thought of the cow again and how it could easily fall off the roof and break its legs or neck, so he went up with a rope to tie it down. He tied one end around the neck of the cow and the other end he dropped down the chimney and tied it to his leg, for the water was already boiling in the pot, and he now had to stir the porridge. While he was hard at work, stirring the porridge, the cow fell off the roof anyway, and pulled the man up through the chimney; where he got stuck, and the cow hang on the outside, half way between heaven and earth, unable to get up or down.
The wife was out in the field, waiting to get called in for dinner, but time went by and nothing happened. Tired of waiting, she went back to the house, where she saw the cow hanging miserably in mid-air. She cut the rope with the scythe to get it down, and this made the man fall down the chimney, and when his wife came into the house, she found him head down in a pot of porridge.