His wife, who was standing on the hearth with a pan of hot fat, ran to him to help him.
It was already dusk, and a log which was burning on the hearth gave a scanty light.
They had to go through a long dark passage, which burnt on the hearth.
In the evening, when the snowflakes fell, the mother said, go, Snow-White, and bolt the door, and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls listened as they sat and spun.
" The kitchen-boy did it, and lighted a fire on the hearth.
Then she was sent into the kitchen, and there she carried wood and water, swept the hearth, plucked the fowls, picked the vegetables, raked the ashes, and did all the dirty work.
When he arose in the morning all the work was already done, the room was swept, the table and benches cleaned, the fire on the hearth was lighted, and the water was fetched, and at noon, when he came home, the table was laid, and a good dinner served.
The horses, too, went to sleep in the stable, the dogs in the yard, the pigeons upon the roof, the flies on the wall, even the fire that was flaming on the hearth became quiet and slept, the roast meat left off frizzling, and the cook, who was just going to pull the hair of the scullery boy, because he had forgotten something, let him go, and went to sleep.
But it was already served, and the dish stood on the hearth.
The neighbour said that she was to carry the changeling into the kitchen, set it down on the hearth, light a fire, and boil some water in two egg-shells, which would make the changeling laugh, and if he laughed, all would be over with him.
There was once a poor peasant who sat in the evening by the hearth and poked the fire, and his wife sat and spun.
In the evening when she had worked till she was weary she had no bed to go to, but had to sleep by the hearth in the cinders.
Early in the afternoon—it was already dark in the house—she laid wood and turf on the hearth, and then she sat down to darn her stockings, for there was no one to do it for her.
It was pleasant and cheerful indoors, where peat fuel and fragments of wood from the wrecks blazed and crackled upon the hearth.
In one of these houses strange things were brewing over the glowing coals on the open hearth; there was a boiling going on in glasses, and a mixing and distilling, while herbs were being cut up and pounded in mortars.
She looked at them, but she saw them not; for her thoughts were far away from the domestic hearth.
Nothing to eat, nothing to burn, no fire on the hearth!
From all the churches sounded the festive bells, and from every hearth, even of the smallest hut, rose the smoke into the blue sky, like the smoke from the festive thank-offerings on the Druids' altars.
The turf blazed brightly on the hearth, and within was sunlight, the sparkling light from the sunny eyes of a child; the birdlike tones from the rosy lips ringing like the song of a lark in spring.
" Now it happened one day that all the paper in the tub was taken out, and laid on the hearth to be burnt.
