We sat at the table, all the new couples, about thirty of us, and we started eating and drinking while the fiddlers were playing their fiddles and the guitars.When dancing the bridels dance, as the custom was, the damned bride, ornated according to the village customs, danced in a peculiar rigid way as if she swallowed a cob that prevented her from bending freely, and from time to time she was spinning like a top. The time came to depart. I thought she would get her own horse, but no, we both had to use the one horse. She said goodbye to her mother and father, sisters, brothers, brothers-in-law and other relatives, and to her beautiful sister who was also a bride and was trying hard to refrain from laughing.
I then took my beautiful wife in my arms and threw her on the saddle and she started to scream and vail loudly: "Daadddy, this one doesn't love me, look how he threw me on the horse!"
"What?" he father got angry, "be careful on how you behave, son-in-law!"
"That's not true my dear, you imagine things..." I said. "No, she did not imagine this, I felt how you threw her!" said the horse.
"Ahaa," screamed the man, "wait a minute, boy. Look here fellow villagers, this man thinks he deserves a better bride. Bring him what he deserves!"
Shamed and miserable, not knowing what to do, all of a sudden I noticed a herd of cows coming, and among them was a big cow with loose skin and a dribelling muzzle I recognized as the cow from the mud. God! She stopped and c’apped her huge lips once.
The village chief, holding the register under his arm said: "Tell me young man,who do you choose?" "I donlt want any other choices, Illl stay with my beloved darling bride!" I said, trembling.
I jumped on the horse's back behind the bride and wanted to leave, but her mother called in a sharp voice "This cow is part of the dowry, she goes with you. Donlt go too fast, so she won't get tired!"
I knew the dowry will arrive about two weeks later, so why did this cow have to come with us?
