Section09.pdf - MIT Media Laboratory

Home went the second son next day, not knowing
how he had been cheated, and was welrnmed by his
farber:
‘Well, my dear son, and what have you learnt?’
‘I’ve ieamr to be a miller,’ was the answer.
‘A good trade,’ said the old tailor, ‘but what have you
broughtbark from your travels?’
‘Just this ass,’ answered his son.
‘Donkeys are common here,’ said his father angrily.
But the young man hastened to explain:
‘This is a Golden Ass. When I say ‘Brirklebrir’ the
good creature opens its mouth and drops a whole sheerfull
of golden pieces. So send for all our friends and
relations, and they shall have a share in my good fortune.’
When the company was gathered, the young man
spread a rlorh on the floor, set the ass upon it, and said
‘Brirklebrir’. But no gold pieres fell, and it was clear
that the animal knew nothing ofthe are ofcoining.
Sohis friends and relatives went home as poor as they
came, leaving the young miller to seek sadly for work
while his father went wearily back to his patches again.
The third brother had apprenticed himself so a rumer,
and as that is skilled labour, he took longest in
learning. So that he was not ready to return home until
some ume after his brothers had written to tell him of
their doings, and of how the wicked innkeeper had
robbed them of their wonderful treasures.
When the day came at last for him to see our on his
trasels, the young turner’s master said to him:
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‘You have worked so well that I will give you a present.
Here is a sack, and it has a cudgel in it.’
‘I might wear the sack,’ said the young man, ‘but of
what use is the cudgel? It only serves to make it heavy.’
‘Things are nor what they seem,’ was the answer. ‘If
anyone has done you an injury or is like to do you one,
all you have to say is ‘Our ofthe sack, Cudgel!’ and the
cudgel will leap our and give them the very best beating
they have ever had in their lives. And it will go on
lashing at them until you say ‘Into the sack, Cudgel!”
The young man thanked him, slung the sack over his
shoulder, and set off for home. And he had no need to
fear robbers and foorpads in the forests and mountains,
for the Magic Cudgel served each and all of them as
they deserved.
Ar last he tame to the inn where his brothers had loss
their treasures, and sat down at the table with his sarkin
front of him.
Very soon the conversation turned to magir treasures,
and the young man exclaimed:
‘Oh, I’ve seen many of them on my way through the
world. It’s easy to find a Magic Table or a Golden Ass
stable which covers itself and a donkey who spits gold
but these are nothing to the treasure which I have won
for myself and am tarrying home in my sark here.’
The innkeeper pricked up his ears: ‘What in the
world can it be?’ he said to himself. ‘Well, whatever itis,
I ran do with it as well as the Table and the Ass. I’ve a
sack which looks just ilke that . . . Wait till he’s asleep.’
Later that nighi as the young man lay by the hearth
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