All I Possess!

folktale · Sweden · Scandinavian

A miserly farmer marries a woman who supposedly eats almost nothing. Suspicious, he spies on her three times—down the chimney, inside a feather bed, and in a beer barrel. Each time she outwits him (with smoke, beating, and scalding lye). On his deathbed, his cries of 'All I possess!' are interpreted as his final wish that she inherit everything.

Open in the interactive archive →