Whatever he did after consulting his wife or at her suggestion resulted favorably enough; but all his own schemes and projects were unaccountably marred and defeated.

If he bought a horse, it was sure to prove spavined or wind-broken.

His cows either refused to give down their milk, or, giving it, perversely kicked it over.

A fine sow which he had bargained for repaid his partiality by devouring, like Saturn, her own children.
By degrees a dark thought forced its way into his mind.

Comparing his repeated mischances with the ante-nuptial warnings of his neighbors, he at last came to the melancholy conclusion that his wife was a witch.
The victim in Motherwell's ballad of the Demon Lady, or the poor fellow in the Arabian tale who discovered that he had married a ghoul in the guise of a young and blooming princess, was scarcely in a more sorrowful predicament.