` Get up , Hans , you are sleeping too long , ' he cried . Hans woke up and rubbed his eyes . ` That 's so , ' said he , ' I shall rise and have my breakfast . ' He got up then and dressed himself , while the breakfast stood waiting for him . When he had finished the whole of this , he asked what he was to do that day . He was told to help the other men to clean out the well . That was all right , and he went out and found the other men waiting for him . To these he said that they could choose whichever task they liked -- either to go down into the well and fill the buckets while he pulled them up , or pull them up , and he alone would go down to the bottom of the well . They answered that they would rather stay above-ground , as there would be no room for so many of them down in the well . Hans therefore went down alone , and began to clean out the well , but the men had arranged how they were to act , and immediately each of them seized a stone from a heap of huge blocks , and threw them down above him , thinking to kill him with these . Hans , however , gave no more heed to this than to shout up to them , to keep the hens away from the well , for they were scraping gravel down on the top of him . They then saw that they could not kill him with little stones , but they had still the big one left . The whole twelve of them set to work with poles and rollers and rolled the big mill-stone to the brink of the well . It was with the greatest difficulty that they got it thrown down there , and now they had no doubt that he had got all that he wanted . But the stone happened to fall so luckily that his head went right through the hole in the middle of the mill-stone , so that it sat round his neck like a priest 's collar . At this , Hans would stay down no longer . He came out of the well , with the mill-stone round his neck , ad went straight to the squire and complained that the other men were trying to make a fool of him . He would not be their priest , he said ; he had too little learning for that . Saying this , he bent down his head and shook the stone off , so that it crushed one of the squire 's big toes . The squire went limping in to his wife , and the steward was sent for .
He was told XXXXX he must devise some plan for getting rid of this terrible person .
To as down from in into of that while with