At noon, seeing that the old woman would soon get the best of him, he went into the forge and took out several scythe-handles, to which he fixed their blades, and bringing them out into the field, laid them down upon the grass which was yet standing.  Then all the scythes set to work of their own accord, and cut down the grass so quickly that the rakes could not keep pace with them.  And so they went on all the rest of the day, and the old woman was unable to rake in all the hay which lay in the fields.  After dark she told him to gather up his scythes and take them into the house again, while she collected her rakes, saying to him:—­

“You are wiser than I took you to be, and you know more than myself; so much the better for you, for you may stay as long with me as you like.”

He spent the whole summer in her employment, and they agreed very well together, mowing with mighty little trouble a vast amount of hay.  In the autumn she sent him away, well laden with money, to his own home in the south.  The next summer, and more than one summer following, he spent in her employ, always being paid as his heart could desire, at the end of the season.

After some years he took a farm of his own in the south country, and was always looked upon by all his neighbors as an honest man, a good fisherman, and an able workman in whatever he might put his hand to.  He always cut his own hay, never using any scythe but that which the elf-woman had given him upon the mountains; nor did any of his neighbors ever finish their mowing before him.

One summer it chanced that while he was fishing, one of his neighbors came to his house and asked his wife to lend him her husband’s scythe, as he had lost his own.  The farmer’s wife looked for one, but could only find the one upon which her husband set such store.  This, however, a little loth, she lent to the man, begging him at the same time never to temper it in the fire; for that, she said, her good man never did.  So the neighbor promised, and taking it with him, bound it to a handle and began to work with it.  But, sweep as he would, and strain as he would (and sweep and strain he did right lustily), not a single blade of grass fell.  Wroth at this, the man tried to sharpen it, but with no avail.  Then he took it into his forge, intending to temper it, for, thought he, what harm could that possibly do? but as soon as the flames touched it, the steel melted like wax, and nothing was left but a little heap of ashes.  Seeing this, he went in haste to the farmer’s house, where he had borrowed it, and told the woman what had happened; she was at her wits’ end with fright and shame when she heard it, for she knew well enough how her husband set store by this scythe, and how angry he would be at its loss.

And angry indeed he was, when he came home, and he beat his wife well for her folly in lending what was not hers to lend.  But his wrath was soon over, and he never again, as he never had before, laid the stick about his wife’s shoulders.