Jeppe on the Hill: why Jeppe drinks

They say all over the district that Jeppe drinks; but they don't say why Jeppe drinks. For in the ten years I was in the militia I never took as many blows as I get in a single day from that wicked woman. She beats me, the bailiff drives me to work like a beast, and the parish clerk makes a cuckold of me.

So haven't I every right to drink? Haven't I every right to use the means that Nature gives us to drive our sorrows away? If I were a fool, these things wouldn't go to my heart so much, and then I wouldn't drink either; but it's a settled fact that I'm a clever man, and that's why I feel such things more than other people do, and that's why I have to drink.

My neighbour Moons Christophersen, being a good friend of mine, often says to me: "The devil take your fat belly, Jeppe, you ought to hit back, and then the old hag would soon behave."

But I can't hit back, for three reasons. First, because I've got no courage. Second, because of that cursed Master Erich hanging behind the bed, and my back can't think of him without wanting to weep.

Third, because I am, though I say it myself, a gentle soul and a good Christian, who never seeks revenge, not even on the parish clerk, who sticks one horn on my head after another; for on top of all that I still pay him his offering on the three holy days, when he hasn't even the decency to stand me one mug of ale the whole year round.