Grimms' Fairy Tales

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and would not suffer him to come down till he was heartily ashamed of
himself, and had promised to be good friends again with old Sultan.




THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN

In a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish
of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and
that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw.
When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her
observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards
a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two. Then the straw
began and said: 'Dear friends, from whence do you come here?' The coal
replied: 'I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if I had not escaped
by sheer force, my death would have been certain,--I should have been