An old English Fairy tale

                                            (AN OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALE)

    One winter evening a poor peasant sat near the fire talking with his wife about one of their neighbours who was a rich man.

"If only I had a little money myself", he said, "I should open my own shop".

"I", answered his wife, "should not be satisfied with that, I should be happy if I lived in a big house, and then, if I saw people like ourselves, I should help them and try to make everybody happy. But we are no longer in the time of fairies. If only I could meet one of them, it would not take me long to decide what to ask of her".

    Hardly had she said these words when a beautiful young lady appeared in their room and told them she was a fairy willing to grant their first three wishes. But she said they should choose carefully as she could allow them no more than three wishes. Then the beautiful lady disappeared.

    At first the husband and wife were astonished. Then they began discussing the first wish that it would be best to have. They quarreled for a long time and finally decided to wish for nothing for a while and put it off till the next day.

    The woman looked at the bright fire and said without thinking: "Oh, it would be a good thing to have a good sausage for our supper". And a long thick sausage fell on their table. The husband got very angry and began scolding his wife. "Isn't that a fine wish? You're such a stupid woman! I wish this sausage would stick to your nose!" This was hardly said when the sausage jumped up and stuck to the poor woman's face.

    The husband understood that he himself had been even more foolish than his wife, but no matter how he tried he could not tear the sausage off his wife's nose. "If you had not wished to have this beauty sausage, I should not have wished it to stick to your nose", said the husband.   

Finally they realized that they had only one wish left. They thought for a long time and agreed to have their last wish. They wished the sausage to fall on the table, which it did.