So he left his wife behind and drove into the field, to the big stone. He whirled it off to the side and bowed down to see what was under the stone. And he had hardly bowed down, when Sorrow sprang up and sat on his shoulders.

“O!” Sorrow cried. “You wanted to leave me here under the earth. Now I shall never depart from you.”

“Listen, Sorrow: I was not the person who locked you up here!”

“Who was it, then, if it was not you?”

“My brother. I came in order to set you free.”

“No, you are lying and deceiving me again. This time it shall not come off.”

So Sorrow sat fast on the wretched merchant’s shoulders. He brought Sorrow with him home, and his household went from bad to worse. Sorrow began early in the morning enticing the merchant into the beerhouse day after day, and much property was drunk away.

588