Social image issues, broken

Eels came up the drainpipe at my house in Bremen. I tied them end to end, and we made a rope that reached the church tower. The bell ringer was most grateful. Sadly the rope went home in the rain, and it took the bell and the ringer with it.

Tailors measure me with a ship's chain, as a matter of honor. One poor man in Bruges needed three weeks to go around my chest. He married along the way. His children helped him hold the tape, and the suit they made still fits me, provided I skip lunch.

Onions won me a wife. I peeled one in front of her father, and the old miser wept for the first time in his life. He gave me her hand, her dowry, and the key to the pantry. I still keep the onion in a velvet box.

Oysters at Ostend gave me a bright idea. I fed a hundred of them on my finest sand and whispered kind words. Each one made me a pearl the size of a plum. I strung them up for my mother, who used them as doorknobs and for rolling out dough.

Dragons make good stoves if you treat them fairly. One in the Carpathians gave me a warm winter.