"but if you are in
such need, I'll give you a cloth which will get you everything you
want, if you only say, 'Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds
of good dishes!'"

With this the _Lad_ was well content. But, as the way was so long he
couldn't get home in one day, so he turned into an inn on the way; and
when they were going to sit down to supper he laid the cloth on a
table which stood in the corner, and said:

"Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes."

He had scarce said so before the cloth did as it was bid; and all who
stood by thought it a fine thing, but most of all the landlady. So,
when all were fast asleep at dead of night, she took the _Lad's_
cloth, and put another in its stead, just like the one he had got from
the _North Wind_, but which couldn't so much as serve up a bit of dry
bread.

So, when the _Lad_ woke, he took his cloth and went off with it, and
that day he got home to his mother.

"Now," said he, "I've been to the _North Wind's_ house, and a good
fellow he is, for he gave me this cloth, and when I only say to it,
'Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes,' I get
any sort of food I please."

"All very true, I daresay," said his mother; "but seeing is believing,
and I shan't believe it till I see it."

So the _Lad_ made haste, drew out a table, laid the cloth on it, and
said:

"Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes."

But never a bit of dry bread did the cloth serve up.

"Well," said the _Lad_ "there's no help for it but to go to the _North
Wind_ again;" and away he went.

So he came to where the _North Wind_ lived late in the afternoon.

"Good evening!" said the _Lad_.

"Good evening!" said the _North Wind_.

"I want my rights for that meal of ours which you took," said the
_Lad_; "for, as for that cloth I got, it isn't worth a penny."

"I've got no meal," said the _North Wind_; "but yonder you have a ram
which coins nothing but golden ducats as soon as you say to it: 'Ram,
ram! make money!'"

So the _Lad_ thought this a fine thing; but as it was too far to get
home that day, he turned in for the night to the same inn where he had
slept before.

Before he called for anything, he tried the truth of what the _North
Wind_ had said of the ram, and found it all right; but, when the
landlord saw that, he thought it was a famous ram, and, when the _Lad_
had fallen asleep, he took another which couldn't co