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The Tailor screamed like a madman.
His wife rushed into the room and pulled the burning head from the flames. “Hush, you drunken fool!” she whispered furiously. “Look what you’ve done! You’ll hang for this and your children will starve!”
“Mama!” The man sobbed like a babe. “My poor, dear mama.”
“You better do what I say,” the wife insisted, “or it will be your own head in the Devil’s hearth fire.”
The pitiful man agreed. In great secrecy, he helped his wife boil away the flesh. The couple kept aside a single rib for selling and buried the rest, interring the Golden Bones beneath the walnut tree, beside the grave of his father.
They worked quickly because a dreadful storm was brewing.