THE GRINDER

The fairytale, "Kverna som står og maler på havsens bunn", translated by AI:

Once upon a time, in the old days, there were two brothers, one rich and the other poor.

When Christmas Eve came, the poor man had no food in the house, not even a crumble of bread, and so he went to his brother and asked for something to eat.

It was not the first time his brother had to give him something, and so he demanded:

”If you promise to do what I ask you to do, you'll get a whole ham," he said.

The poor man promised on the spot and thanked him.

"There you have it. Then go straight to hell!" said the rich man, throwing the pork ham over to him.

"Yes, what I have promised, I will keep," said the other, taking the ham and leaving.

He walked and he walked all day, and in the dark he came to a place where it shone so brightly.

This must be it, thought the man with the ham.

Out in the woodshed stood an old man with a long white beard chopping wood.

"Good evening!" said he with the ham.

"Good evening! Where are you going so late?" said the old one.

"I'll probably go to hell if I'm on the right track," replied the poor man.

"Yes, you’re right, it's here," said the other.

"When you go in, they will all want to buy your pork ham, because pork is rarely eaten in hell;

but you should not sell it unless you get the hand grinder behind the door as a trade for it.

When you come out again, I will teach you how to set the grinder, it is useful for many things."

Yes, the one with the ham thanked the old one for good guidance, and knocked on the door of the devil.

When he came in, it was as the old man had said; all the devils, both large and small, surrounded him like ants and maggots, and one bid over the other for the ham.

"It is true that my wife and I should have eaten it for Christmas supper, but since you are so keen on it,

I will probably have to leave it for you," said the man.

"But if I'm going to sell it, I want the hand grinder that's behind the door over there."

The devil would reluctantly give it away, and tinged and haggled; but the man did not change his offer, and in the end,

the devil had to go along with it.

When the man came out of hell, and back to the farm, he asked the old wood chopper how to set the grinder.

And when he had learned that, he said thank you and left home as soon as he could;

but still he did not make it home until twelve o'clock on Christmas night.

“Where on earth have you been?" said the wife. “I have waited for hours and hours, with nothing to eat."

"Oh, I could not come before, I had to run an errand, and I had a long way to go too. But now you will see!" said the man.

He put the grinder on the table, and first asked it to grind candles, then tablecloths,

and then food and beer and everything good for Christmas dinner, and everything he asked the grinder to make, it did.

The old woman crossed herself over and over, and wanted to know where the man had gotten the mill from,

but he did not want to tell her; “it doesn’t matter where I got it; you see the grinder is good" said the man.

So the grinder made food and drinks and all good things for the whole Christmas,

and the third day he asked his friends to come over for a feast.

When the rich brother saw all that was in the banquet hall, he became both angry and wild,

for he didn’t want his brother to have anything.

"On Christmas Eve he was so poor that he came to me and asked for something in the name of God,

and now he is doing so well that he could be both count and king," he thought.

"Where the hell did you get all your wealth from?" he said to his brother.

"Behind the door," said he who owned the mill, he did not care to explain further.

But in the evening, when he was a little drunk, he could not help himself, and brought forth the grinder.

"There you see the one who has provided me with all the wealth!" he said,

and then he made the grinder make one thing and another.

When the brother saw this, he wanted nothing more than to have the grinder for himself.

And so it would be, but he had to pay three hundred dollars for it, and not until after harvest;

"for if I can have it until then, I’ll have time to grind food for years," the poor man thought.

At that time one can probably know the grinder did not get rusty, and when the harvest came,

the rich brother got it; but the other had not taught him how to use it.

It was in the evening that the rich man got the grinder home,

and in the morning he asked his wife to go out and look for the haymakers;

he was going to make the dinner himself today, he said.

When it was time to work, he put the grinder on the kitchen table.

"Grind herring and gruel, and that both fast and well!" the man said.

And the grinder started to grind herring and gruel, first all barrels and troughs full, and then all over the kitchen floor.

The man tried everything to make the grinder stop, but as he turned and twisted it, the grinder kept going,

and in a little while the gruel reached so high that the man was close to drowning.

Then he tried opening the living room door, but it was with difficulty,

the man could hardly get a hold of the door latch down in the flood.

When he opened the door, he set out, and herring and gruel came flooding after him;

cascading out over both the farm and the fields.

Now his wife, who was pushing and spreading hay, thought the work day had gone on long enough.

"If the man does not call us home, we can go anyway; he probably can't do much cooking, I should help him,"

said the wife to the haymakers.

And so they strolled home. But when they came up towards the house, they were met by herring and gruel and bread,

which went tumbling down the hillside, and the man himself leading the flood.

“I wish you had 300 stomachs each! But be careful that you do not drown in this herring,"

he shouted, running as if the devil was on his heels, towards where his brother lived.

He asked him for God's sake to take back the grinder, and that at the moment;

"if it grinds for another hour, then the whole village perishes in herring and gruel," he said.

But the brother would not take it at all until the other paid him three hundred dollars more, and so he had to.

Now the poor man had both money and the grinder,

and so it was not long before he got a farm, much more valuable than the one his brother lived in;

with the grinder making so much gold that he covered the house with only gold plates.

Since the farm was close to the sea, it shone and shone from far out over the fjord.

All those who sailed past there were to stop by and greet the rich man in the gold court,

and all then they would see the strange grinder, for the word spread both far and wide,

and there was no one that hadn’t heard of it.

Eventually a sailor also came who wanted to see the mill; he asked if it could grind salt.

“Yes, it could grind salt!” said he who owned it.

And when the sailor heard this, he said he would buy the grinder, no matter the cost;

for if he had it, he thought, he would not have to sail far across the sea for salt.

At first the man did not want to get rid of it, but the sailor both begged and prayed,

and in the end he sold it and got many, many thousands of dollars for it.

When the sailor had got the grinder on his back, he did not stop there long,

for he was afraid the man would change his mind; and so he forgot to ask how to use it.

He was in a rush, he went down to the ship as fast as he could,

and when he came some distance out to sea, he got the grinder up.

"Grind salt, and that both fast and well!" said the sailor. Yes, the grinder started to grind salt, and much of it.

When the sailor had filled the ship, he wanted to tune the grinder to stop, but no matter what he did,

and how he cared for it, the grinder would not stop.

And the salt heap grew higher and higher, and finally the ship went to the bottom.

There, the grinder stands on the bottom of the sea and grinds to this day, and therefore the sea is salty.