Once upon a time there was a farmer’s daughter with a boyfriend. Every evening her boyfriend would come to her house to have dinner at the farm. As usual the daughter went into the basement to grab some beer to drink during dinner. One day, she walked into the basement, looked up and suddenly noticed a hammer hanging in one of the wooden beams. The hammer must have been there for a long time, but for some reason she never noticed it before.
She started thinking and suddenly thought that the hammer was very dangerous. ‘Imagine that we get married,’ she thought to herself, ‘and that we have a son. If he goes into the basement to get beer, the hammer could drop on his head! That would be horrible.’ She put down her candle and beer mug, sat down and started crying.
Upstairs they started to wonder where the daughter went and her mother came downstairs to check on her. When she found her daughter crying, she asked: ‘What is going on honey?’ ‘Oh mother’, said the girl. ‘Imagine if we get married and have a son and he would go get beer and that hammer could just drop on his head. It would be horrible!.’ ‘Oh honey’, said the mother. ‘That would indeed be terrible.’ And she sat next to her daughter and started crying.
After a while the father came to check what was going on. He walked into the basement and found his wife and daughter crying. ‘What is going on?, he asked. ‘Look at that horrible hammer’, said the mother. ‘Imagine that our daughter and boyfriend get married and have a son. When he will be older and goes to fetch beer in the basement it could fall on his head. It would be horrible!.’ ‘Oh sweetheart!’, said the father. ‘That indeed would be horrible.’ And he also sat down and started crying.
After the boyfriend sat alone in the kitchen for a while, he decided to go check in the basement and found the three crying. ‘What is going on?’ asked the man. ‘Oh”, said the father. ‘Look at the terrible hammer. Imagine that you would marry my daughter, have a son and the hammer would drop on his head!’ And the three of them started crying again.
But the daughter’s boyfriend bursted out in laughter. He stretched out his arm and pulled the hammer from the wood and said: ‘I have seen much of the world, but I’ve never seen such sillies as you. I’m going to travel some more and if I meet even bigger sillies, I shall come back and marry your daughter.’ The man said his goodbyes and left the family crying, because now she lost her boyfriend.
After a long journey the man arrived at a house with a lot of grass in the gutter. The woman had put a ladder against the house and was trying to push a cow up the ladder to eat the grass. ‘What are you doing?’, asked the man curiously. ‘I am helping my cow up the roof to eat the grass’, answered the woman. ‘It’s completely safe, I have tied a rope around her body, threw that down the chimney and tied it around my waist. Nothing can go wrong.’
‘Oh, poor silly’, said the man, ‘it’s better to pick the grass and throw it down for the cow.’ But the woman disagreed and continued with her plan. The cow fell and because its so heavy, the woman was pulled through the chimney and got stuck. The man continued his journey and thought: ‘That was a big silly..’
The man continued his travels and stopped at an inn. It was very busy and he had to share a room with another guest. They had a lovely evening, but in the morning he was surprised: his roommate had hung his pants on the doorknob and was trying to jump into it. And even though he failed and failed, he kept trying.
‘What are you doing?, asked the man. ‘Oh’, said the roommate, ‘whoever invented pants…What a hassle. It takes me an hour every day to get into them and then I’m all sweaty. How do you do it?’ The man started laughing and showed his roommate how he put on his pants. The roommate was impressed and said he never thought to do it that way.
‘And that was silly number two’, thought the man and continued his journey. He arrived at a village where everybody had gathered around the pond with brooms and pitchforks. ‘What is going on?, asked the man. ‘Well’, answered the villagers, ‘the moon has fallen into the water and we can’t get it out.’ Again the man started laughing and said: ‘Look up! You see the shadow of the moon in the water.’ But the villagers refused to listen and the man hurried off.
And that was silly number three. So there were many more sillies in the world. So the man decided to return home and marry the farmer’s daughter and they lived happily ever after.
