LITTLE Lodewyk built card houses, but Annie the witch always came to blow them down.

One day little Lodewyk grew tired of this and built himself a stone house. He put in a fireplace and a pump. Now if the witch came she could not blow it down.

Suddenly he heard a knock at the door!

“Who is there?” asked the little man.

“Annie the witch, open the door,” was the answer.

“What can Annie the witch want with me?”

“Very little, nothing but a little fire.”

“I have no fire.”

“You most certainly have, I saw smoke coming out of the chimney.”

“Then you must squint, my chimney cannot smoke. I have never lighted the fire; you must have seen the smoke from my neighbour’s chimney.”

“No, no, I am not to be taken in like that. My eyes are quite straight,” and she went off in a huff.

The next day she came back and again knocked at the door.

“Who is there?” asked little Lodewyk.

“It is I, my good man, Annie the witch.”

“What can Annie the witch want with me again?”

“Nothing much, only a pail of water.”

“You know very well I have no water.”

“Most certainly you have water, for I heard it gurgling in the pump.”

“Then you have very strange ears. I have never raised the pump-handle. No doubt the noise you heard came from my neighbour’s house.”

“I warn you that if you refuse to open the door I shall cut off your head.”

Little Lodewyk was terrified; he put the chain on the door and hid himself up the chimney.

In spite of this the witch went in and searched for him everywhere, but she could not find him. However, at last she discovered him seated in the chimney, and dragged him down by the hair of his head.

“Put your head on the table that I may cut it off,” commanded the witch, opening wide her red eyes.

“Willingly Annie, but tell me how,” said Lodewyk, who had a scheme in his head. “Show what I am to do.”

“Very well, place your head like this!” cried Annie the witch, and she placed her large and hideous head quite unsuspectingly on the table.

Lodewyk quickly seized his axe and cut off the witch’s head.

Then little Lodewyk calmly fried a herring for his supper and smoked a pipe.

And then there came a pig with a long snout.

And the little story has run out.