Once upon a time there was a peasant, who led his cow to pasture in the spring, and prayed God to have her in His care.
The evil one was sitting in a bush, heard him, and said to himself: “When things turn out well, they thank God for it; but if anything goes wrong, then I am always to blame!”
A few days later the cow strayed into a swamp. And when the peasant came and saw her he said: “Look at that! The devil has had his finger in the pie again!”
“Just what I might have expected,” thought the devil in his bush. Then the peasant went off to fetch people to help drag the cow out. But in the meantime the devil slipped from his bush and helped out the cow, for he thought:
“Now he will have something to thank me for, too.”
But when the peasant came back and saw the cow on dry land, he said: “Thank God, she’s out again!”
Credits
Unknown writer is the attributed author of this brief folk tale, which belongs to the rich oral tradition of peasant stories found across Europe. Short moral fables like this one were passed down through generations long before being collected in print, often using humble, everyday characters to poke gentle fun at human nature. The story's dry wit and neat circular structure suggest a tale well-worn by many retellings.
