Nail Soup

A well-known trickster tale from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

When a traveller in the forest knocks at a lonely cottage, hoping to scrounge a bed for the night, a scowling woman appears and says he can sleep on the floor, but declares that she hasn’t a morsel of food in the place. “In that case,” says the traveller, “I’ll have to share what I’ve got with you.” And, taking an old, rusty, four-inch nail from his pocket, he starts to make … Nail Soup.