! We will
give thee such a lot of money for it."--"You may pick up all that
money, ye accursed ones," cried the man, "but I don't mean to sell my
ram."

Then the Jews picked up the money, but they laid before him a table
covered with all the dishes that a man's heart may desire, and they
begged him to sit down and make merry, and said with true Jewish
cunning, "Though thou mayst get a little lively, don't get drunk, for
thou knowest how drink plays the fool with a man's wits."--The man
marvelled at the straightforwardness of the Jews in warning him
against the drink, and, forgetting everything else, sat down at table
and began drinking pot after pot of mead, and talking with the Jews,
and his little ram went clean out of his head. But the Jews made him
drunk, and laid him in the bed, and changed rams with him; his they
took away, and put in its place one of their own exactly like it.

When the man had slept off his carouse, he arose and went away, taking
the ram with him, after bidding the Jews farewell. When he got to his
hut he found his wife in the doorway, and the moment she saw him
coming, she went into the hut and cried to her children, "Come,
children! make haste, make haste! for daddy is coming, and brings a
little ram along with him; get up, and look sharp about it! An evil
year of waiting has been the lot of wretched me, but he has come home
at last."

The husband arrived at the door and said, "Open the door, little wife;
open, I say!"--The wife replied, "Thou art not a great nobleman, so
open the door thyself. Why dost thou get so drunk that thou dost not
know how to open a door? It's an evil time that I spend with thee.
Here we are with all these little children, and yet thou dost go away
and drink."--Then the wife opened the door, and the husband walked
into the hut and said, "Good health to thee, dear wife!"--But the wife
cried, "Why dost thou bring that ram inside the hut, can't it stay
outside the walls?"--"Wife, wife!" said the man, "speak, but don't
screech. Now we shall have all manner of good things, and the children
will have a fine time of it."--"What!" said the wife, "what good can
we get from that wretched ram? Where shall we get the money to find
food for it? Why, we've nothing to eat ourselves, and thou dost saddle
us with a ram besides. Stuff and nonsense! I say."--"Silence, wife,"
replied the husband; "that ram is not like other rams, I tell
thee."--"What sort is it, then?" asked his wife