an asked her father-in-law if he had ever lent
anything to the old woman; and when he said he could not remember
having lent anything, she begged him to think carefully, and see if
he could not recall the loan of a tool, a dish, or a fagot. He finally
recollected that he had lent to her an old wooden ladle, but he said
it originally cost but a few farthings, and was certainly not worth
speaking about.

The next time the old woman came to dun for the amount due for her
cat, the young woman asked her to return the borrowed ladle. The old
woman said that the ladle was old and valueless; that she had allowed
the children to play with it, and that they had dropped it in the
dirt, where it had lain until she had picked it up and used it for
kindlings. The bride responded: "You expect to enrich yourself and
your family by means of your cat. I and my family also want money.
Since you cannot give back the ladle, we will both go before the
magistrate and present our cases. If your cat is adjudged to be worth
more than my ladle I will pay you the excess; and if my ladle be worth
more than your cat, then you must pay me." Being sure that the cat
would, by any judge, be considered of greater value than the ladle,
the old woman agreed to the proposition, and the two went before the
magistrate. The young woman courteously gave precedence to the elder,
and allowed her to make the accusation. The old woman set forth her
case, and claimed two hundred ounces of silver as a compensation for
the loss of the cat. When she had concluded her statement, the judge
called on the young woman for her defense. She said she could not
disprove the statement, but that the claim was offset by a ladle that
had been borrowed by the plaintiff. There was a common saying:

"In the moon overhead, at its full, you can see
The trunk, branch and leaf of a cinnamon tree."

A branch from this tree had one night been blown down before her
father-in-law's door, and he had had a ladle made from the wood.
Whatever the ladle was put into never diminished by use. Whether wine,
oil, rice, or money, the bulk remained the same if no ladle beside
this one were used in dipping it. A foreign inn-keeper, hearing of
this ladle, came and offered her father-in-law three thousand ounces
of silver for it, but the offer was refused. And this ladle was the
one that the plaintiff had borrowed and destroyed.

The magistrate, on hearing this defense, understood that the cat had