Once upon a time there was a poor farmer who had no land, only a small house and an only daughter, so the daughter said 'we should ask the king for a piece of red land'. When the king heard of their poverty, he also gave them a corner of lawn, which she and her father hoed, and wanted to sow a little grain and the kind of fruit on it. When they had almost finished the field, they found a mortar of pure gold in the earth. Listen,' said the father to the girl, 'because our lord the king has been so gracious and has given us this field, we must give him the mortar for it.' The daughter, however, would not grant it and said, 'Father, if we have the mortar and do not have the pestle, then we must also bring the pestle, so you had better keep quiet'. But he would not obey her, so he took the mortar and carried it to the king, saying that he had found it on the heath and would he accept it as a worship. The king took the mortar and asked if he had found anything else? No, answered the farmer. Then the king said he should now also bring the pestle. The farmer said they had not found it, but that helped him as much as if he had said into the wind, he was put in prison and was to sit there until he had brought the pestle.

The servants had to bring him water and bread every day, which is what you get in prison, and they heard the man crying out, "Oh, if I had belonged to my daughter! Oh, oh, if I had belonged to my daughter! Then the servants went to the king and said how the prisoner cried out, "Oh, if only I had belonged to my daughter," and would not eat or drink. Then he ordered the servants to bring the prisoner before him, and the king asked him why he had cried out, "Oh, if I had listened to my daughter! What did your daughter say then? If you have such a clever daughter, let her come here. So she had to come before the king, who asked her if she was so clever, and said he wanted to give her a riddle, if she could solve it, then he wanted to marry her. She immediately said yes, she wanted to guess. Then the king said, "Come to me, not dressed, not naked, not riding, not driving, not in the way, not out of the way, and if you can do that, I will marry you. So she went, and stripped herself naked, she was not clothed, and took a large fish-twine, and sat down in it, and wrapped it all around herself, she was not naked: And borrowed a donkey for the money, and tied the fish yarn to the donkey's tail, in which he had to drag her away, and was that not ridden and not driven: but the donkey had to drag her in the track, so that she came to the ground only with her big toe, and was that not in the way and not out of the way. And as she came along, the king said that she had met the riddle and that everything had been fulfilled. Then he released her father from prison and took her as his wife, entrusting her with all the royal property.

Now some years had passed, when the king once went on parade, it happened that farmers with their wagons stopped in front of the castle, they had sold wood; some had oxen harnessed, and some had horses. There was a farmer who had three horses, one of which got a young filly that ran away and lay down in the middle between two oxen that were in front of the wagon. When the farmers came together, they began to quarrel, to throw and to make noise, and the ox farmer wanted to keep the stuffing and said the oxen had it, and the other said no, his horses had it, and it was his. The quarrel came before the king, and he said that where the stuffing had been, it should stay; and so the ox farmer, to whom it did not belong, got it. Then the other one went away, cried and lamented about his stuffing. Now he had heard that the queen was so gracious, because she had also come from poor farmers: he went to her and asked her if she could not help him to get his stuffing back. She said, "Yes, if you promise not to betray me, I will tell you. Tomorrow morning, when the king is on guard parade, stand in the middle of the street where he must pass, take a large fishing yarn and act as if you were fishing, and so fish away and pour out the yarn as if you had it full,' and also told him what he should answer if he were asked by the king. So the next day the farmer stood fishing in a dry place. When the king passed by and saw this, he sent his runner to ask what the foolish man was up to. There he gave the answer 'I fish'. The runner asked how he could fish, because there was no water. Said the farmer 'as well as two oxen can get a fill, so well I can also fish on the dry place'.

The runner went and brought the king the answer, then he summoned the farmer and told him that he had not heard it from himself, from whom he had heard it: and he should confess it immediately. But the peasant would not do it, and said, God forbid, he had it from himself. But they laid him on a bundle of straw and beat and tortured him until he confessed that he had it from the queen. When the king came home, he said to his wife, "Why are you so wrong with me, I no longer want you as my wife: your time is up, go back to where you came from, to your farmhouse. But he allowed her one thing, she should take with her the dearest and best she knew, and that should be her farewell. She said, 'Yes, dear husband, if you order it that way, I will do it too,' and fell upon him and kissed him and said she wanted to say goodbye to him. Then she sent for a strong sleeping draught to drink farewell with him: the king took a large draught, but she drank only a little. Soon he fell into a deep sleep, and when she saw this, she called a servant and took a beautiful white linen cloth and wrapped him in it, and the servants had to carry him in a carriage to the door, and she drove him home to her little house. There she put him in her little bed, and he slept day and night all at once, and when he woke up, he looked around and said, "Oh, God, where am I?" and called his servants, but there was no one there. At last his wife came to the bedside and said, "My dear King, you ordered me to take the best and most beautiful things from the castle, and now I have nothing better and more beautiful than you, so I took you with me. The king's eyes filled with tears, and he said, 'Dear wife, you shall be mine and I yours,' and he took her back to the royal palace and married her again, and they will live to this day.