The Lad Who Went to the North Wind

Long ago there lived an old widow who had one son. She was sickly and weak, so it was the boy’s job to go up to the storehouse and fetch flour for cooking. One day, as he came out of the storehouse and started down the steps, along came the North Wind, puffing and blowing. It snatched up the flour and carried it off through the air.

The boy went back into the storehouse for more, but when he came out onto the steps, the North Wind swooped down and blew that flour away too. And it did the very same thing a third time. Now the boy was really angry. He thought it was too bad of the North Wind to behave like that, so he decided he would go and find him and ask for the flour back.

Off he went. The road was long, and he walked and walked, but at last he came to the North Wind’s house.

“Good day,” said the boy, “and thank you for visiting us yesterday.”

“GOOD DAY!” boomed the North Wind, for his voice was loud and gruff. “AND THANK YOU FOR VISITING ME. WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

“Oh,” said the boy, “I only came to ask if you would kindly give me back the flour you took from me on the storehouse steps. We don’t have much to live on, and if you keep snatching away the little we have, we’ll starve.”

“I don’t have your flour,” said the North Wind, “but since you are in such need, I’ll give you a tablecloth that will bring you everything you want. Just say, ‘Cloth, spread yourself and serve up all kinds of good food!’”

The boy was very pleased with that. But home was too far to reach in a single day, so he stopped at an inn along the way. When it was time for supper, he laid the cloth on a table in the corner and said, “Cloth, spread yourself and serve up all kinds of good food!”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the cloth did just as it was told. Everyone who saw it thought it was a marvelous thing, but the landlady thought so most of all. In the middle of the night, while everyone was fast asleep, she crept in, took the boy’s cloth and left another in its place that looked exactly like it but couldn’t serve up so much as a crust of dry bread.

When the boy woke up, he took the cloth and set off, and that day he reached home.

“Mother,” he said, “I’ve been to the North Wind’s house, and what a good fellow he is! He gave me this cloth, and whenever I say, ‘Cloth, spread yourself and serve up all kinds of good food,’ I get anything I like to eat.”

“That may be so,” said his mother, “but seeing is believing, and I won’t believe it until I see it.”

So the boy hurried to pull out a table, spread the cloth on it and said the words. But the cloth didn’t serve up even a crust of dry bread.

“Well,” said the boy, “there’s nothing for it but to go back to the North Wind.” And off he went.

He reached the North Wind’s house late in the afternoon. “Good evening,” said the boy.

“Good evening,” said the North Wind.

“I want to be paid for the flour you took from us,” said the boy, “because that cloth you gave me isn’t worth a penny.”

“I don’t have any flour,” said the North Wind, “but over there is a ram that makes nothing but gold coins as soon as you say, ‘Ram, ram, make money!’”

The boy thought that was a fine thing. But it was too far to get home that day, so he spent the night at the same inn. Before he even ordered anything, he tested what the North Wind had told him about the ram and found it was true. When the landlord saw this, he thought it was a wonderful ram, and once the boy had fallen asleep, he swapped it for another ram that couldn’t make gold coins at all.

The next morning the boy set off, and when he got home, he said to his mother, “The North Wind is a jolly fellow after all. Now he’s given me a ram that makes gold coins whenever I say, ‘Ram, ram, make money!’”

“That may be so,” said his mother, “but I won’t believe such nonsense until I see the coins.”

“Ram, ram, make money!” said the boy. But whatever the ram made, it wasn’t money.

So the boy went back to the North Wind and gave him a piece of his mind. He said the ram was worthless, and he must be paid for the flour.

“Well,” said the North Wind, “I have nothing else to give you except that old stick in the corner. But it’s a special stick. If you say, ‘Stick, stick, lay on!’ it will keep whacking away until you say, ‘Stick, stick, now stop!’”

The road home was long, so that night too the boy stopped at the inn. By now he could guess pretty well what had become of the cloth and the ram, so he lay straight down on the bench and began to snore as if he were fast asleep.

The landlord could easily see that the stick must be worth something. He found one that looked just like it, and when he heard the boy snoring, he crept over to swap them. But just as he reached for it, the boy shouted, “Stick, stick, lay on!”

The stick began to whack the landlord, and he leaped over chairs and tables and benches, howling and yelling, “Oh, help! Oh, help! Tell the stick to stop, and you shall have your cloth and your ram back!”

When the boy thought the landlord had had enough, he said, “Stick, stick, now stop!”

Then he tucked the cloth into his pocket and went home with the stick in his hand, leading the ram by a rope tied to its horns. And so he was paid in full for the flour he had lost.

About this story

“The Lad Who Went to the North Wind” is from Popular Tales from the Norse, George Webbe Dasent’s 1859 translation of the Norwegian tales of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. The tale of three magic gifts, two stolen by a greedy innkeeper and the third used to win them back, is told all over Europe; the Brothers Grimm have a version called “The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Donkey and the Cudgel in the Sack.”

The boy is polite but stubborn. He keeps going back until he gets what is fair, and the third gift turns out to be the one that fixes everything.

Read the original: Popular Tales from the Norse (Project Gutenberg)

Suggested for ages 6–8 with an adult: includes poverty, theft and a magic stick beating the innkeeper until he returns the stolen gifts.

The third journey changes the question

The boy knows the cloth and ram worked at the inn, but first blames the North Wind when they fail at home. On the third visit he watches instead of sleeping. That change exposes the theft. The stick supplies force, yet it is his attention to the repeated pattern that finally directs it at the actual thief.

Follow each gift overnight

Make a before-and-after pair for the cloth and ram: what happens at the inn, and what happens at home? Add the fact the boy does not witness. Then explain what he does differently with the stick. Discuss restitution in the story without treating a beating as a fair way to settle real disputes.

Questions to ask

• Why did the boy go to see the North Wind?
• What happened to the cloth and the ram at the inn?
• How did the boy use the stick to get everything back?

Related stories

• The Cat on the Dovrefell — another clever Norwegian trick
• The Husband Who Was to Mind the House — more from Asbjørnsen and Moe
• The Blue Belt — a Norwegian boy and a magic gift