A peasant had sowed some turnips. When he thought the time had come to pull them up, he went to the field, but they were not above the ground. ‘May the devil take you,’ the peasant cried in his wrath, and he returned home. A month afterwards his wife said to him. ‘Go and see if it is time to pull the turnips.’ The peasant again went to his field, and this time found it covered with fine turnips; but the moment he began to pull them up a little old man appeared, and cried, ‘why are you stealing my turnips?’—‘What do you mean by “your turnips”?’—‘No doubt they are! Did you not give them to me before they were up? I have taken great care of them, and watered them.’—‘But I sowed them.’ ‘That may be,’ said the devil. ‘You may have sowed them—I do not say you did not, but I watered them. But hold, I will tell you what we will do. We will come here, you and I, each with what transport we please. If you can guess what I am riding on, the turnips shall be yours; and they shall belong to me if I can guess what you are riding on.’ The peasant agreed to this arrangement.
The next day, he took his wife with him, and when they were near the field, he made her go on all fours, tucked up her petticoats, stuck a carrot into her behind, and covered her face under her long hair. As for the devil, he caught a hare, mounted on it, and on arriving asked the peasant: ‘What did I come here on?’—‘What does it eat?’ asked the peasant. ‘The young shoots of the aspen tree.’—‘Then it is a hare.’ On his side, the devil tried to recognize the animal the peasant was mounted on, and began to walk round it. ‘The long hair’, he observed, ‘is, of course the tail; and here is the head, but it is eating a carrot.’ This completely baffled the devil, and he confessed himself beaten. The peasant pulled up the turnips, and sold them, and from that day began to prosper.