Jean receives in payment for seven years of work with a master craftsman a gold nugget. He then exchanges this nugget for a horse, then the horse for a cow, the cow for a pig, the pig for a goose, the goose for a sharpening stone. Finally, he loses the stone by dropping it in a well. After losing the sharpening stone, he is relieved because it weighed heavy, and continues his happy journey to his mother's house. On his way home, he keeps running into Knudsen the Merchant and his beautiful daughter Elisabeth.