It happened one day that the eldest son wished to go into the forest to cut wood, and before he went his mother gave him a delicious cake and a flask of wine. When he came into the forest a little old grey man met him, who wished him good day, and said,
"Give me a bit of your cake, and let me have a drink of your wine; I am so hungry and thirsty."
But the youth answered,
"Give you my cake and my wine? I haven't got any; be off with you."
And leaving the little man standing there, he went off. Then he began to fell a tree, but he had not been at it long before he made a wrong stroke, and the hatchet hit him in the arm, so that he was obliged to go home and get it bound up. That was what came of the little grey man.
