During Easter week a peasant went out to see whether the ground was all thawed out.
He went into the garden and touched the soil with a stick. The earth was soft. The peasant went into the woods; here the catkins were already swelling on the willows. The peasant thought:
“I will fence my garden with willows; they will grow up and will make a good hedge!”
He took his axe, cut down a dozen willows, sharpened them at the end, and stuck them in the ground.
All the willows sent up sprouts with leaves, and underground let out just such sprouts for roots; and some of them took hold of the ground and grew, and others did not hold well to the ground with their roots, and died and fell down.