One year went by, and a second, and the good youth got rather weary of the yoke. But what on earth was he to do? He had married and he had tied himself for all eternity, and, maybe, his entire life would go by in this misery. From sheer wretchedness he contrived himself this contrivance. In the forest there was a deep pit of which neither end nor bottom could be seen. So he took and closed it up on the top with stakes, and strewed it over with straw. Then he came up to his wife: “My dear wife, you don’t know that there is a treasure in the forest. It simply moans and groans with gold, and will not give itself up to me. It said, ‘Send for your wife.’ ”

“Ha, ha! let us go: I will take it, and you say nothing about it.”

So they went into the wood. “Sssh, woman, that is hollow ground out of which the treasure comes forth.”

“Oh, what a fool you are of a peasant, frightened of everything! This is how I run up to it.” So she ran up to the straw and was precipitated into the pit.