By good luck a butcher came by just then,
and he delivered them over to him, and made the bargain in this way, that
he should take the butcher a measure of turnip-seed, and then the butcher
was to count him out a Brabant thaler for every seed. I call that well
sold! The peasant now went home, and carried the measure of turnip-seed
to him on his back. On the way, however, he lost one seed out of the
bag. The butcher paid him justly as agreed on, and if the peasant had not
lost the seed, he would have had one thaler the more. In the meantime,
when he went on his way back, the seed had grown into a tree which reached
up to the sky. Then thought the peasant, "As thou hast the chance, thou
must just see what the angels are doing up there above, and for once
have them before thine eyes." So he climbed up, and saw that the angels
above were threshing oats, and he looked on. While he was thus watching
them, he observed that the tree on which he was standing, was beginning
to totter; he peeped down, and saw that someone was just going to cut
it down. "If I were to fall down from hence it would be a bad thing,"
thought he, and in his necessity he did not know how to save himself
better than by taking the chaff of the oats which lay there in heaps,
and twisting a rope of it.
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