Why the Sea Is Salt (; the mill that grinds at the bottom of the sea) is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in their Norske Folkeeventyr. Andrew Lang included it in The Blue Fairy Book (1889). Synopsis A poor man begged from his brother on Christmas Eve. The brother promised him, depending on the variant, ham or bacon or a lamb if he would do something. The poor brother promised; the rich one handed over the food and told him to go to Hel (in Lang's version, the Dead Men's Hall; in the Greek, the Devil's dam). Since he promised, he set out. In the Norse variants, he meets an old man along the way. In some variants, the man begs from him, and he shares with the beggar. However, when the poor man is about to share the meat, the old man tells him that in Hell (or the hall), the dwarves there love that kind of meat but can never get any. The beggar instructs the poor man to barter for the hand-mill behind the door, then return to him for directions to use it. The dwarves offered many fine goods for the meat, but the poor man stubbornly refused to sell the meat until they offered their mill. Going back to the beggar, he tells the poor man that the mill will create whatever he wants, but it will work incesstantly unless the wisher says "good little mill, I thank you enough", which will terminate the process. In the Greek, he merely brought the lamb and told the devils that he would take whatever they would give him, and they gave him the mill. He took it to his wife, and had it grind out everything they needed for Christmas, from lights to tablecloth to meat and ale. They ate well and on the third day, they had a great feast. His brother was astounded and when the poor man had drunk too much, or when the poor man's children innocently betrayed the secret, he showed his rich brother the hand-mill. His brother finally persuaded him to sell it. In the Norse version, the poor brother didn't teach him how to handle it. He set to grind out herrings and broth, but it soon flooded his house. His brother wouldn't take it back until he paid him as much as