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The Lazy Spinning Woman Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm A man and a woman lived in a village. The woman was so lazy that she never wanted to do any work. She never finished what the man gave her to spin, and what she did spin she did not wind onto a reel, but left it tangled on the bobbin. If the man scolded her, she always had a quick tongue, and would say, "Well, how can I wind it up? I don't have a reel. First you must go into the woods and get me one." "If that's the problem," said the man, "then I'll go into the woods, and get some wood for a reel." Then the woman was afraid that once he had the wood, he would make a reel out of it, and she would have to wind up her yarn, and then begin to spin with an empty wheel. She thought about this a little while, and then a good idea came to her. She secretly followed the man into the woods. When he had climbed into a tree to select and cut the wood, she crept into the brush below, where he could not see her, and cried upward: Cut wood for a reel, and you shall die, Wind onto it, and ruin your life. The man listened, laid down his ax for a while, and thought about what it could mean. "Well," he said at last, "what can it have been? Your ears must have been ringing. Don't get alarmed for nothing." So he took hold of the ax once more and was about to chop away when again there came a call from below: | 
