The Boy Who Went to the North Wind

Far up in the north, where the pine trees stood close together and the roofs were covered with rough grey slate, there lived an old widow with her son. They did not have much. A little cottage with one window, a stove that smoked when the wind blew, and up under the roof a storeroom where the meal was kept in a wooden chest. The mother was frail and could no longer climb the stairs, so the boy had to fetch the meal himself. One morning, when the sky was pale and the wind was twisting around the corners of the house, he took the wooden bowl in his hand, tied his little red cap on his head, and went up to the storeroom to fetch meal for the porridge.

The boy opened the storeroom door, dipped the bowl into the meal sack, and filled it to the brim. Then he stepped back out onto the stairs. But just then, fffhuuuuu!, the North Wind came rushing between the pine trees, blew and puffed with full cheeks, and swept all the meal up out of the bowl and carried it away through the air. The boy stared. The bowl was empty. He went back in and filled it again. He stepped out onto the stairs. And fffhuuuuu!, there came the wind again, and took the meal a second time. He went in a third time, careful now, and held his hand like a roof over the bowl. But it did not help. The North Wind blew, and the boy's meal flew away over the forest for the third time.

Then the boy grew angry. He stamped on the stairs until the bowl rattled. 'This is not right,' he said aloud to himself. 'We have nothing at home but that meal, and the North Wind takes it every single time. Then I shall just have to go and call on him myself and ask for it back.' He hung the bowl on a nail beside the door, tied his cap on once more, and set off. The way was long. He went past dark forest tarns that mirrored the sky, past mossy stones and tangled spruces, past paths where only the hare's footprints showed. He walked a whole day and a little further, and only late in the evening did he come to the great house of the North Wind, built of blue timber logs, with weathervanes on the roof spinning in every direction at once.