I chose to use an image from Drawn with Character - "Cute Cow". There a lots of fairy tales with a cow in them, think Jack and the Beanstalk, he sold one. How about The Little Peasant by the Grimms Brothers. I chose one called "The Husband Who Was to Mind the House".
The cow has been coloured with Copic Pens, mounted with 3d squares onto green designer paper. I have added a wooden bird and hedgehog. Label to the side with a hand-written note. Inside I have placed the story. I have included it at the end of this posting, in case anyone wants to read about this husband.
Open Minded Crafting Challenge #11, May 24, Fairy Tale or Fantasy
Entered into:
Love to Scrap Challenge # 30 - Anything Goes
Melonheadz Friends - Animals
Use your Stuff - The rule of Three (three animals)
7 Kids College Fund - Anything Goes
Ruby's Rainbows #79 - Animals
Whimsie Doodles May Challenge - Animals
The Husband Who Was to Mind the House
(a fairytale from Norway)
Once
upon a time there was a man who was so bad tempered and cross that he
never thought his wife did anything right in the house. One evening, in
haymaking time, he came home, scolding and swearing, and showing his
teeth and making a commotion.
"Dear love, don't be so
angry. That's a good man," said his wife, "tomorrow let's change jobs.
I'll go out with the mowers and mow, and you can mind the house at
home."
Yes, the husband thought that would do very well. He was quite willing, he said.
So
early the next morning, his wife took a scythe over her neck, and went
out into the hay field with the mowers and began to mow. But the man was
to mind the house and do the work at home.
First of
all he wanted to churn the butter. But when he had churned a while, he
got thirsty and went down to the cellar to tap a barrel of ale. He had
just knocked in the bung and was putting in the tap, when he heard the
pig come into the kitchen above. As fast as he could, he ran up the
cellar steps, with the tap in his hand, to keep the pig from upsetting
the churn. But when he got there he saw that the pig had already knocked
the churn over, and was standing there routing and grunting in the
cream which was running all over the floor. He got so angry that he
quite forgot the ale barrel and ran at the pig as hard as he could. He
caught it, too, just as it ran out of doors, and gave it such a powerful
kick that he killed it on the spot.
Then he remembered
he had the tap in his hand. But when he returned to the cellar, all the
ale had run out of the barrel. Then he went into the milk-shed and
found enough cream left to fill the churn again, and so he began to
churn, for they had to have butter for dinner.
When
he had churned a bit, he remembered that their milk cow was still shut
up in the barn and hadn't had a bit to eat or a drop to drink all
morning, although the sun was high. It occurred to him that it was too
far to take her down to the meadow, so he'd just get her up onto the
roof, for it was a sod roof, and a fine crop of grass was growing there.
The house was close against a steep hill, and he thought if he laid a
plank across to the back of the roof he'd easily get the cow up.
But
he couldn't leave the churn, for his little baby was crawling about on
the floor. "If I leave it," he thought, "the child will tip it over." So
he put the churn on his back, and went out with it. But then he thought
he'd better first water the cow before he put her onto the roof, so he
picked up a bucket to draw water out of the well. But as he stooped over
the edge of the well all the cream ran out of the churn over his
shoulder and down into the well.
Now it was nearly
dinner time, and he hadn't even finished the butter yet, so he thought
he'd best boil the porridge. He filled the pot with water and hung it
over the fire. When he had done that, it occurred to him that the cow
might fall off the roof and break her legs or her neck, so he climbed up
onto the house to tie her up. He tied one end of the rope around the
cow's neck. He slipped the other end down the chimney and tied it around
his own leg. Then he had to hurry, for the water was now boiling in the
pot, and he still had to grind the oatmeal.
He began
to grind away; but while he was hard at it, the cow fell off the roof,
dragging the man up the chimney by the rope. There he stuck fast. As for
the cow, she hung halfway down the wall, swinging between heaven and
earth, for she could neither get down nor up.
Now the
wife waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her husband to come and
call her home to dinner, but he never came. At last she thought she'd
waited long enough, and she went home. But when she arrived home and saw
the cow hanging there, she ran up and cut the rope with her scythe.
When she did this, her husband fell down from within the chimney. When
the old woman came inside, she found him with his head in the porridge
pot.
