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There was once an old man who lived in an old cottage out in the hills, near a wood. The cottage was made of big grey stones and there were wild herbs growing in the cracks. It was falling apart: the stones were slowly tumbling down and the roof falling in in places. The old man couldn't do anything with it anymore.

One day he decided to clean up his house. He took all his belongings and broke them up into a cauldron over the hearth-fire at the back of the room (the cottage was one room), at the north end of the cottage. Pots and pans of all metals - copper, silver, iron, gold, and so on; his tables and chairs - broke them up and threw them in; his stoneware; all his clothes but those he wore. Everything that was his, until there was only the bare floorboards and his own feet. He swept the floor of dust and threw that in, too, followed by the broom. Then he stirred everything in and stirred and stirred, this way and that, till it became a fiery, glowing liquid.

Then he dipped his hands in, and from the mixture molded a beautiful shining globe. He cast it up the chimney into the sky. With the rest he made a globe of rough, rusty, soot-blackened iron. He threw it down under the floorboards, where the rats and spiders lived.

Then he left his house for good.

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