THE THREE WISHES

1.    Once upon a time . . . a woodcutter lived happily with his wife in a pretty

2. little log cabin in the middle of a thick forest. Each morning he set off 

3. singing to work, and when he came home in the evening, a plate of hot steaming 

4. soup was always waiting for him. 

5.    One day, however, he had a strange surprise. He came upon a big fir tree 

6. with strange open holes on the trunk. It looked somehow different from the 

7. other trees, and just as he was about to chop it down, the alarmed face of an 

8. elf popped out of a hole.

9.    "What's all this banging?" asked the elf. "You're not thinking of cutting 

10. down this tree, are you? It's my home. I live here!" The woodcutter dropped 

11. his axe in astonlshment.

12.    "Well, I . . ." he stammered.

13.    "With all the other trees there are in this forest, you have to pick this 

14. one. Lucky I was in, or I would have found myself homeless."

15.    Taken aback at these words, the woodcutter qulckly recovered, for after all

16. the elf was quite tiny, while he himself was a big hefty chap, and he boldly 

17. replied: "I'll cut down any tree I like, so . . ." 

18.    "All right! All right!" broke in the elf. "Shall we put it this way: if you

19. don't cut down this tree, I grant you three wishes. Agreed?" The woodcutter 

20. scratched his head. 

21.    "Three wishes, you say? Yes, I agree." And he began to hack at another 

22. tree. As he worked and sweated at his task, the woodcutter kept thinking about

23. the magic wishes. 

24.    "I'll see what my wife thinks..."

25.    The woodcutter's wife was busily cleaning a pot outside the house when her 

26. husband arrived. Grabbing her round the waist, he twirled her in delight.

27.    "Hooray! Hooray! Our luck is in!" 

28.    The woman could not understand why her husband was so pleased with himself 

29. and she shrugged herself free. Later, however, over a glass of fine wine at 

30. the table, the woodcutter told his wife of his meeting with the elf, and she 

31. too began to picture the wonderful things that the elf's three wishes might 

32. give them. The woodcutter's wife took a first sip of wine from her husband's 

33. glass.

34.    "Nice," she said, smacking her lips. "I wish I had a string of sausages to 

35. go with it, though..."

36.    Instantly she bit her tongue, but too late. Out of the air appeared the 

37. sausages while the woodcutter stuttered with rage.

38.    ". . . what have you done! Sausages . . . What a stupid waste of a wish! 

39. You foollsh woman. I wish they would stick up your nose!" No sooner sald than

40. done. For the sausages leapt up and stuck fast to the end of the woman's nose.

41. This time, the woodcutter's wife flew into a rage.

42.    "You idiot, what have you done? With all the things we could have wished 

43. for . . ." The mortified woodcutter, who had just repeated his wife's own 

44. mistake, exclaimed:

45.    "I'd chop . . ." Luckily he stopped himself in time, realizing with horror 

46. that he'd been on the point of having his tongue chopped off. As his wife 

47. complained and blamed him, the poor man burst out laughing.

48.    "If only you knew how funny you look with those sausages on the end of your

49. nose!" Now that really upset the woodcutter's wife. She hadn't thought of her 

50. looks. She tried to tug away the sausages but they would not budge. She pulled 

51. again and again, but in vain. The sausages were firmly attached to her nose. 

52. Terrified, she exclaimed: "They'll be there for the rest of my life!"

53.    Feeling sorry for his wife and wondering how he could ever put up with a 

54. woman with such an awkward nose, the woodcutter said: "I'll try." Grasping the

55. string of sausages, he tugged with all his might. But he simply pulled his 

56. wife over on top of him. The pair sat on the floor, gazing sadly at each other.

57.    "What shall we do now?" they said, each thinking the same thought.

58.    "There's only one thing we can do . . ." ventured the woodcutter's wife 

59. timidly.

60.    "Yes, I'm afraid so . . ." her husband sighed, remembering their dreams of 

61. riches, and he bravely wished the third and last wish "I wish the sausages 

62. would leave my wife's nose."

63.    And they did. Instantly, husband and wife hugged each other tearfully, 

64. saying "Maybe we'll be poor, but we'll be happy again!"

65.    That evening, the only reminder of the woodcutter's meeting with the elf 

66. was the string of sausages. So the couple fried them, gloomily thinking of 

67. what that meal had cost them.

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