LV.—THE SHE-WOLF.
There was an enchanted mill, so that no one could stay there,
because a she-wolf always haunted it. A soldier went once
into the mill to sleep. He made a fire in the parlour, went
up into the garret above, bored a hole with an auger in the
floor, and peeped down into the parlour. A she-wolf came in
and looked about the mill to see whether she could find anything
to eat. She found nothing, and then went to the fire,
and said: `Skin down! skin down! skin down!' She raised
herself upon her hind-legs, and her skin fell down. She
took the skin, and hung it on a peg, and out of the wolf
came a damsel. The damsel went to the fire, and fell
asleep there. He came down from the garret, took the
skin, nailed it fast to the mill-wheel, then came into the mill,
shouted over her, and said: `Good-morning, damsel! how
do you do?' She began to scream: `Skin on me! skin on
me! skin on me!' But the skin could not come down, for
it was fast nailed. The pair married, and had two children.
As soon as the elder son got to know that his mother was a
wolf, he said to her: `Mamma! mamma! I have heard
that you are a wolf.' His mother replied: `What nonsense
you are talking! How can you say that I am a wolf?'
The father of the two children went one day into the field
to plough, and his son said: `Papa, let me, too, go with
you.' His father said: `Come.' When they had come to
the field, the son asked his father: `Papa, is it true that our
mother is a wolf?' His father said: `It is.' The son inquired:
`And where is her skin?' His father said: `There
it is, on the mill-wheel.' No sooner had the son got home,
than he said at once to his mother: `Mamma! mamma! you
are a wolf! I know where your skin is.' His mother
asked him: `Where is my skin?' He said: `There, on
the mill-wheel.' His mother said to him: `Thank you,
sonny, for rescuing me.' Then she went away, and was
never heard of more.
