One day a poor woodcutter was working in the forest chopping down trees and sawing them into logs. He stopped for a moment and saw a fairy sitting on a leaf nearby.
"I have come", she told him, "to give you three wishes. The next three wishes you make will come true. Use them wisely".
After work, the woodcutter returned home and told his wife what had happened. She did not believe a word he said.
"You've just dreamt it", she laughed. "Still, just in case, you'd better think carefully before you wish".
Together they wondered. Should they wish for gold, jewels, a fine home? They argued and disagreed about everything until the woodcutter shouted crossly, "I'm hungry after all my work. Let's eat first".
"I'm afraid there's only soup", his wife replied. "I'd no money to buy any meat".
"Soup again!" grumbled the woodcutter. "How I wish that we had a fine fat sausage to eat tonight".
Before they could blink, a fine fat sausage appeared on their kitchen table.
"You idiot!" screeched his wife. "Now you've wasted one of our precious wishes. You make me so angry". She went on scolding until he could stand it no more and he shouted.
"I wish that sausage was on the end of your nose!"
Immediately the large sausage jumped in the air and attached itself to the wife's nose. There she stood with the big fat sausage hanging clown in front of her. It was difficult to talk with it hanging there and she became really angry when the woodcutter laughed at her because she looked so ridiculous. She pulled and pulled, he pulled and pulled. But the sausage stayed there, stuck on the end of her nose.
The woodcutter soon stopped laughing when he remembered they only had one of the fairy's wishes left.
"Let's wish", he said quickly, "for all the riches in the world".
"What good would that do", she asked, "with a long sausage hanging from my nose? I could not enjoy them for a minute!"
The woodcutter and his wife finally agreed that they could do nothing except get rid of that sausage-nose.
The woodcutter wished and in a flash the sausage was gone, and he and his wife sat down to eat the soup that she had prepared for their supper. The only point they could agree on for a long while was how foolish they had both been to use the fairy's wishes so unwisely. They also wished - too late by now - that they had eaten the sausage when it had first appeared.