In a village lived a man and a woman, and the woman was so lazy that she never wanted to work: and whatever the man gave her to spin, she never finished spinning, and whatever she spun, she reeled she didn't, but left everything wrapped on the claw. If the man now scolded her, her mouth was still in front, and said, "Oh, how am I supposed to reel, since I don't have a reel, you go into the forest first and get me one." "If that's the point," said the man, "I'll go into the forest and get reel-wood." Then the woman was afraid, if he had the wood, he would make a reel out of it, and reel it off and then had to spin again. She thought about it a bit, then she had a good idea, and she secretly ran after the man into the forest. When he had climbed up a tree to sort out the wood and cut it, she crept under it into the bushes where he couldn't see her and called up
"Whoever cuts reel wood dies,
whoever reels there perishes.”
The man listened, put the ax down for a while and wondered what that might mean. "Oh, what," he said at last, "what will it have been! It was ringing in your ears, don't be unnecessarily afraid.” So he grabbed the ax again and was about to hit, when it called up again from below
"Whoever cuts reel wood dies,
whoever reels there perishes.”
He stopped, got scared and scared and pondered the thing. But after a while his heart came back, and he took the ax for the third time and wanted to hit it. But for the third time they called and spoke loudly
"Whoever cuts reel wood dies,
whoever reels there perishes.”
Then he had had enough, and he had lost all desire, so that he hurried down the tree and made his way home. The woman walked as much as she could on byways so that she could get home sooner. When he now entered the room, she acted innocently, as if nothing had happened, and said, "Now, can you bring some good reel wood?" told her what he had encountered in the forest and left her alone from now on.
Soon afterwards the husband began to be angry again at the disorder in the house. "Woman," he said, "it's a shame that the spun yarn is left lying there on the claw." "You know what," said she, "because we can't get to a reel, stand on the ground and I'm standing down there, I want to throw the claw up for you, and you throw it down, so there's a rope." "Yes, that works," said the man. So they did that, and when they were finished, he said, "The yarn is now knitted, now it has to be boiled." The woman was afraid again, she said, "Yes, we want to cook it first thing in the morning," but thought about it up a new prank. She got up early in the morning, lit the fire and put the kettle by the side, but instead of yarn she put a lump of tow in it and always let it boil. Then she went to the man who was still in bed and said to him, "I have to go out sometime, meanwhile get up and look at the yarn that is in the kettle over the fire: but you must do it in time, take care, because where the rooster crows and you don't look, the thread becomes tow." The man was at hand and didn't want to miss anything, got up as quickly as he could and went into the kitchen. But when he came to the cauldron and looked inside, he was terrified to see nothing but a lump of tow. Then the poor man was as quiet as a mouse, thought he had made a mistake and was to blame for it and in future he didn't talk about yarn and spiders at all. But you have to say that yourself, it was a nasty woman.