is
shoulder. He journeyed and journeyed, but found no fool. At last he
said, worn out: "I must turn back, for I see I cannot find a greater
fool than my wife." He did not know what to do, whether to go on or to
turn back. "Oh!" he said, "it is better to try and go a little farther."
So he went on and shortly he saw a man in his shirt-sleeves at a well,
all wet with perspiration and water. "What are you doing, sir, that you
are so covered with water and in such a sweat?" "Oh! let me alone," the
man answered, "for I have been here a long time drawing water to fill
this pail and I cannot fill it." "What are you drawing the water in?" he
asked him. "In this sieve," he said. "What are you thinking about, to
draw water in that sieve? Just wait!" He went to a house near by, and
borrowed a bucket, with which he returned to the well and filled the
pail. "Thank you, good man, God knows how long I should have had to
remain here!" "Here is one who is a greater fool than my wife."

He continued his journey and after a time he saw at a distance a man in
his shirt who was jumping down from a tree. He drew near, and saw a
woman under the same tree holding a pair of breeches. He asked them what
they were doing, and they said that they had been there a long time, and
that the man was trying on those breeches and did not know how to get
into them. "I have jumped, and jumped," said the man, "until I am tired
out and I cannot imagine how to get into those breeches." "Oh!" said the
traveller, "you might stay here as long as you wished, for you would
never get into them in this way. Come down and lean against the tree."
Then he took his legs and put them in the breeches, and after he had put
them on, he said: "Is that right?" "Very good, bless you; for if it had
not been for you, God knows how long I should have had to jump." Then
the traveller said to himself: "I have seen two greater fools than my
wife."

Then he went his way and as he approached a city he heard a great noise.
When he drew near he asked what it was, and was told it was a marriage,
and that it was the custom in that city for the brides to enter the city
gate on horseback, and that there was a great discussion on this
occasion between the groom and the owner of the horse, for the bride was
tall and the horse high, and they could not get through the gate; so
that they must either cut off the bride's head or the horse's legs. The
groom did not wish his bride's head cut off, an