The Husband Who Was to Mind the House

The Husband Who Was to Mind the House

Once in Norway, beside a field that smelled of freshly cut hay in summer, there lived a husband and wife. They both worked hard, but the husband always thought his own work was the hardest.

He would return from the fields in the evening and grumble,

“Why isn’t supper on the table yet?”

Or,

“Why are there so many things to do here? Can’t you get them done faster?”

At first, his wife explained. Then she stopped arguing. One evening, she said,

“You know what? Let’s trade places tomorrow. I’ll go and mow the hay, and you’ll stay home. You can look after the child, the cow, the piglet, the butter, and dinner.”

The husband was delighted.

“Wonderful! At last I’ll have an easy day.”

In the morning, his wife took the scythe and went to the field. The husband rolled up his sleeves.

“I’ll begin with the butter,” he decided.

He poured cream into the churn and started churning. He churned and churned and churned…until he grew thirsty.

“I’ll go down to the cellar for a moment,” he said.

He had just opened the drink barrel when something banged upstairs.

Thump!

Rustle!

Oink, oink, oink!

“The piglet!” the man guessed.

He rushed up the stairs. Sure enough, the piglet had run into the kitchen, stuck its snout into the churn, and tipped it over. Cream spread across the floor, and the happy piglet slipped on its little hooves and dashed outside.

“Stop!” the husband shouted, running after it.

The piglet was quicker. It hid behind the barn, where it kept cheerfully grunting.

Then the husband remembered the cellar.

“The barrel!”

He hurried back. But while he had been chasing the piglet, a whole puddle had flowed from the open tap.

“Never mind,” he muttered. “Now I’ll do everything carefully.”

He wiped the floor, gathered more cream, and began churning again.

Then a long sound came from the barn.

“Moooo!”

“I must feed the cow!”

The husband did not feel like taking her to the distant meadow. Their cottage roof was covered in turf, with thick green grass growing on it.

“Oh!” he said happily. “She can graze on the roof.”

He leaned a broad plank against the low slope and carefully led the cow up.

“Just stand still,” he asked her.

The cow liked the grass. She chewed away, unaware that her owner below was trying to watch her, churn butter, and cook porridge all at once.

“I need some water, too,” he remembered.

He picked up a bucket, then decided not to leave the churn near the piglet, and carried it with him as well. At the well, he leaned over to draw water—and the churn’s lid slipped off.

Splash!

Some of the cream landed right on his shirt.

The husband froze.

“That’s the second time…”

Meanwhile, back at home, the water for the porridge was merrily bubbling.

Bubble, bubble, bubble!

“The porridge!”

He rushed to the stove, poured in the grain, and began stirring. Suddenly, he heard footsteps on the roof.

The cow was tired of standing in one place. She was moving toward the edge.

“No, no, no! Go back!”

The husband climbed onto the roof and tied the cow to a sturdy post with a long rope. But in his hurry, he somehow wound the loose end around his own waist.

When the cow stepped down the slope, the rope pulled tight, and the husband clumsily landed in a soft pile of hay beside the wall.

At that very moment, his wife returned from the field.

She stopped at the gate.

The porridge was bubbling in the kitchen. The freshly washed floorboards still shone with water. The piglet was grunting behind the barn. The cow stood on the roof. And her husband sat in the hay, tangled in rope.

For a few seconds, his wife said nothing.

Then she asked,

“Well, how was your easy day?”

The husband looked at her and suddenly began to laugh himself.

“I’ve discovered an important secret.”

“What secret?”

“Nothing in a home gets done by itself.”

His wife helped untangle the rope. Together they brought the cow down, returned the piglet to its pen, rescued the porridge, and tidied the kitchen.

At supper, the husband said,

“Tomorrow I’ll go back to the field. But I won’t say my work is harder than yours anymore.”

“And I won’t say mine is harder than yours,” his wife replied. “We simply have different jobs. Every one of them takes time.”

From then on, they helped each other more often. When there was too much work in the field, the wife went out to help her husband. When chores piled up at home, he carried water, fed the animals, or stirred the porridge without grumbling.

If anyone in the village began to say, “What’s so difficult about someone else’s work?” the husband would smile and answer,

“Try it for a day. Just don’t put the cow on the roof.”

Then everyone laughed, and his wife laughed loudest of all.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨