There was once a man who had a daughter named Elsie. Everyone called her "Clever Elsie." When she grew up, her father wanted her to get married. A man named Hans came from another town to meet her. However, Hans had one condition: Elsie had to be very smart.
"Oh," her mother said, "she is so smart she can hear the flies coughing!"
One day, while they were having dinner, the mother told Elsie to go to the cellar and get some beer. Elsie went down, sat on a chair, and turned on the tap. While she was waiting for the jug to fill, she looked up at the wall. She saw a heavy pick-axe that some workers had left there by mistake.
Elsie began to cry. She thought, "If I marry Hans and we have a child, and the child grows up and comes down here to get beer, that pick-axe might fall on his head and kill him!"
She sat there screaming and crying. When she didn't return, the maid went down to find her. Elsie told her about the pick-axe and the future child. The maid cried too, saying, "What a clever Elsie we have!" Then the boy, the mother, and finally the father went down. They all sat in the cellar, crying about a child that didn't even exist yet.
Hans was waiting upstairs, but no one came back. He went down and found all five of them crying. When they explained the "danger" of the pick-axe, Hans was impressed. "You are indeed very clever," he said. He took her hand, and they got married.
Sometime later, Hans said, "Wife, I’m going to work. Go to the field and cut the corn so we can make bread."
Elsie went to the field, but she was lazy. She thought, "Should I work first or eat first? I’ll eat first." After eating, she thought, "Should I work or sleep? I’ll sleep." She fell asleep in the middle of the corn.
Hans came home and waited, but Elsie didn't return. He went to the field and saw her sleeping. He had a clever idea: he took a net with little bells and hung it around her. Then he went home and locked the door.
When Elsie finally woke up, it was dark. Every time she moved, the bells rang. She was so confused that she didn't know who she was. "Is it I, or is it not I?" she asked herself. She ran to her house and knocked on the window. "Hans," she called, "is Elsie inside?"
"Yes," Hans replied from inside, "she is here."
Elsie was terrified. "Oh no! Then I am not Elsie!" she thought. She ran to other houses, but when people heard her bells, they wouldn't open the door. She ran away from the village and was never seen again.