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Once upon
a time...
Long, long ago, there were two brothers, the one rich and the
other poor. When Christmas Eve came, the poor one had not a bite in
the house, either of meat or bread; so he went to his brother, and
begged him, in God's name, to give him something for Christmas Day.
It was by no means the first time that the brother had been forced
to give something to him, and he was not better pleased at being
asked now than he generally was.
"If you will do what I ask you, you shall have a whole ham," said
he. The poor one immediately thanked him, and promised this.
"Well, here is the ham, and now you must go straight to Dead Man's
Hall," said the rich brother, throwing the ham to him.
"Well, I will do what I have promised," said the other, and he took
the ham and set off. He went on and on for the livelong day, and at
nightfall he came to a place where there was a bright light.
"I have no doubt this is the place," thought the man with the ham.
An old man with a long white beard was standing in the outhouse,
chopping Yule logs.
"Good-evening," said the man with the ham.
"Good-evening to you. Where are you going at this late hour?" said
the man.
"I am going to Dead Man's Hall, if only I am on the right track,"
answered the poor man.
"Oh! yes, you are right enough, for it is here," said the old man.
"When you get inside they will all want to buy your ham, for they
don't get much meat to eat there; but you must not sell it unless
you can get the hand-mill which stands behind the door for it. When
you come out again I will teach you how to stop the hand-mill, which
is useful for almost everything."
So the man with the ham thanked the other for his good advice, and
rapped at the door.
When he got in, everything happened just as the old man had said it
would: all the people, great and small, came round him like ants on
an ant-hill, and each tried to outbid the other for the ham.
"By rights my old woman and I ought to have it for our Christmas
dinner, but, since you have set your hearts upon it, I must just
give it up to you," said the man. "But, if I sell it, I will have
the hand-mill which is standing there behind the door."
At first they would not hear to this, and haggled and bargained with
the man, but he stuck to what he had said, and the people were
forced to give him the hand-mill. When the man came out again into
the yard, he asked the old wood-cutter how he was to stop the
hand-mill, and when he had learned that, he thanked him and set off
home with all the speed he could, but did not get there until after
the clock had struck twelve on Christmas Eve.
"Where in the world have you been?" said the old woman. "Here I have
sat waiting hour after hour, and have not even two sticks to lay
across each other under the Christmas porridge-pot."
"Oh! I could not come before; I had something of importance to see
about, and a long way to go, too; but now you shall just see!" said
the man, and then he set the hand-mill on the table, and bade it
first grind light, then a table-cloth, and then meat, and beer, and
everything else that was good for a Christmas Eve's supper; and the
mill ground all that he ordered. "Bless me!" said the old woman as
one thing after another appeared; and she wanted to know where her
husband had got the mill from, but he would not tell her that.
"Never mind where I got it; you can see that it is a good one, and
the water that turns it will never freeze," said the man. So he
ground meat and drink, and all kinds of good things, to last all
Christmas-tide, and on the third day he invited all his friends to
come to a feast.
Now when the rich brother saw all that there was at the banquet and
in the house, he was both vexed and angry, for he grudged everything
his brother had. "On Christmas Eve he was so poor that he came to me
and begged for a trifle, for God's sake, and now he gives a feast as
if he were both a count and a king!" thought he. "But, for heaven's
sake, tell me where you got your riches from," said he to his
brother.
"From behind the door," said he who owned the mill, for he did not
choose to satisfy his brother on that point; but later in the
evening, when he had taken a drop too much, he could not refrain
from telling how he had come by the hand-mill. "There you see what
has brought me all my wealth!" said he, and brought out the mill,
and made it grind first one thing and then another. When the brother
saw that, he insisted on having the mill, and after a great deal of
persuasion got it; but he had to give three hundred dollars for it,
and the poor brother was to keep it till the haymaking was over, for
he thought: "If I keep it as long as that, I can make it grind meat
and drink that will last many a long year." During that time you may
imagine that the mill did not grow rusty, and when hay- harvest came
the rich brother got it, but the other had taken good care not to
teach him how to stop it. It was evening when the rich man got the
mill home, and in the morning he bade the old woman go out and
spread the hay after the mowers, and he would attend to the house
himself that day, he said.
So, when dinner-time drew near, he set the mill on the
kitchen-table, and said: "Grind herrings and milk pottage, and do it
both quickly and well."
So the mill began to grind herrings and milk pottage, and first all
the dishes and tubs were filled, and then it came out all over the
kitchen-floor. The man twisted and turned it, and did all he could
to make the mill stop, but, howsoever he turned it and screwed it,
the mill went on grinding, and in a short time the pottage rose so
high that the man was like to be drowned. So he threw open the
parlour door, but it was not long before the mill had ground the
parlour full too, and it was with difficulty and danger that the man
could go through the stream of pottage and get hold of the
door-latch. When he got the door open, he did not stay long in the
room, but ran out, and the herrings and pottage came after him, and
it streamed out over both farm and field. Now the old woman, who was
out spreading the hay, began to think dinner was long in coming, and
said to the women and the mowers: "Though the master does not call
us home, we may as well go. It may be that he finds he is not good
at making pottage and I should do well to help him." So they began
to straggle homeward, but when they had got a little way up the hill
they met the herrings and pottage and bread, all pouring forth and
winding about one over the other, and the man himself in front of
the flood. "Would to heaven that each of you had a hundred stomachs!
Take care that you are not drowned in the pottage!" he cried as he
went by them as if Mischief were at his heels, down to where his
brother dwelt. Then he begged him, for God's sake, to take the mill
back again, and that in an instant, for, said he: "If it grind one
hour more the whole district will be destroyed by herrings and
pottage." But the brother would not take it until the other paid him
three hundred dollars, and that he was obliged to do. Now the poor
brother had both the money and the mill again. So it was not long
before he had a farmhouse much finer than that in which his brother
lived, but the mill ground him so much money that he covered it with
plates of gold; and the farmhouse lay close by the sea-shore, so it
shone and glittered far out to sea. Everyone who sailed by there now
had to be put in to visit the rich man in the gold farmhouse, and
everyone wanted to see the wonderful mill, for the report of it
spread far and wide, and there was no one who had not heard tell of
it.
After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the
mill. He asked if it could make salt. "Yes, it could make salt,"
said he who owned it, and when the skipper heard that, he wished
with all his might and main to have the mill, let it cost what it
might, for, he thought, if he had it, he would get off having to
sail far away over the perilous sea for freights of salt. At first
the man would not hear of parting with it, but the skipper begged
and prayed, and at last the man sold it to him, and got many, many
thousand dollars for it. When the skipper had got the mill on his
back he did not stay there long, for he was so afraid that the man
would change his mind, and he had no time to ask how he was to stop
it grinding, but got on board his ship as fast as he could.
When he had gone a little way out to sea he took the mill on deck.
"Grind salt, and grind both quickly and well," said the skipper. So
the mill began to grind salt, till it spouted out like water, and
when the skipper had got the ship filled he wanted to stop the mill,
but whatsoever way he turned it, and how much soever he tried, it
went on grinding, and the heap of salt grew higher and higher, until
at last the ship sank. There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea,
and still, day by day, it grinds on; and that is why the sea is
salt.
Why the Sea is Salt
from the Blue Fairy Book
Story Edited
by Andrew Lang |
