70 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
70 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
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THE THREE WISHES
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Once upon a time . . . a woodcutter lived happily with his wife in a pretty
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little log cabin in the middle of a thick forest. Each morning he set off
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singing to work, and when he came home in the evening, a plate of hot steaming
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soup was always waiting for him.
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One day, however, he had a strange surprise. He came upon a big fir tree
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with strange open holes on the trunk. It looked somehow different from the
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other trees, and just as he was about to chop it down, the alarmed face of an
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elf popped out of a hole.
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"What's all this banging?" asked the elf. "You're not thinking of cutting
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down this tree, are you? It's my home. I live here!" The woodcutter dropped
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his axe in astonlshment.
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"Well, I . . ." he stammered.
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"With all the other trees there are in this forest, you have to pick this
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one. Lucky I was in, or I would have found myself homeless."
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Taken aback at these words, the woodcutter qulckly recovered, for after all
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the elf was quite tiny, while he himself was a big hefty chap, and he boldly
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replied: "I'll cut down any tree I like, so . . ."
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"All right! All right!" broke in the elf. "Shall we put it this way: if you
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don't cut down this tree, I grant you three wishes. Agreed?" The woodcutter
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scratched his head.
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"Three wishes, you say? Yes, I agree." And he began to hack at another
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tree. As he worked and sweated at his task, the woodcutter kept thinking about
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the magic wishes.
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"I'll see what my wife thinks..."
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The woodcutter's wife was busily cleaning a pot outside the house when her
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husband arrived. Grabbing her round the waist, he twirled her in delight.
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"Hooray! Hooray! Our luck is in!"
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The woman could not understand why her husband was so pleased with himself
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and she shrugged herself free. Later, however, over a glass of fine wine at
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the table, the woodcutter told his wife of his meeting with the elf, and she
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too began to picture the wonderful things that the elf's three wishes might
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give them. The woodcutter's wife took a first sip of wine from her husband's
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glass.
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"Nice," she said, smacking her lips. "I wish I had a string of sausages to
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go with it, though..."
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Instantly she bit her tongue, but too late. Out of the air appeared the
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sausages while the woodcutter stuttered with rage.
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". . . what have you done! Sausages . . . What a stupid waste of a wish!
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You foollsh woman. I wish they would stick up your nose!" No sooner sald than
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done. For the sausages leapt up and stuck fast to the end of the woman's nose.
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This time, the woodcutter's wife flew into a rage.
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"You idiot, what have you done? With all the things we could have wished
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for . . ." The mortified woodcutter, who had just repeated his wife's own
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mistake, exclaimed:
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"I'd chop . . ." Luckily he stopped himself in time, realizing with horror
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that he'd been on the point of having his tongue chopped off. As his wife
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complained and blamed him, the poor man burst out laughing.
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"If only you knew how funny you look with those sausages on the end of your
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nose!" Now that really upset the woodcutter's wife. She hadn't thought of her
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looks. She tried to tug away the sausages but they would not budge. She pulled
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again and again, but in vain. The sausages were firmly attached to her nose.
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Terrified, she exclaimed: "They'll be there for the rest of my life!"
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Feeling sorry for his wife and wondering how he could ever put up with a
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woman with such an awkward nose, the woodcutter said: "I'll try." Grasping the
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string of sausages, he tugged with all his might. But he simply pulled his
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wife over on top of him. The pair sat on the floor, gazing sadly at each other.
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"What shall we do now?" they said, each thinking the same thought.
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"There's only one thing we can do . . ." ventured the woodcutter's wife
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timidly.
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"Yes, I'm afraid so . . ." her husband sighed, remembering their dreams of
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riches, and he bravely wished the third and last wish "I wish the sausages
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would leave my wife's nose."
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And they did. Instantly, husband and wife hugged each other tearfully,
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saying "Maybe we'll be poor, but we'll be happy again!"
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That evening, the only reminder of the woodcutter's meeting with the elf
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was the string of sausages. So the couple fried them, gloomily thinking of
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what that meal had cost them.
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