The master of the Mendiondo house was a great lazy person and yet the work was always finished more quickly at his house than at the neighbors'. In a single hour of the morning the peerage, below the house, was mowed down; one Sunday, during mass, all the wheat in a field was sawn. The neighbors were very surprised because they never saw any workers at his house.
Mendiondo flies
His wife is also wrong. Now, one Sunday, before going to mass, she saw him from a distance hiding something in a bush. She went there, curious to know what he had put there, and found a case there. She opened it and out came ten flies. Flies flutter in his eyes, in his ears and buzz:
– »Zer egin? zer egin? zer egin? (what to do? what to do? what to do?)
Terrified, the woman said to them:
– “Go back into the hole quickly.”
The flies immediately enter the case. The woman closed it and put it back in place. She hastened to tell her husband what had happened to her, and the husband admitted that it was the flies that were doing the work on his farm. From that moment on, whatever work the woman gave them, it was done in a moment. One day when there was nothing to do, the flies tormented the woman saying:
– »Lan! Lan! Lan! (work!work!work!)
She gave them a sieve:
– “Come on,” she said to them, “fill the empty barrel in the cellar with water. You will take the water from the mill canal, and you will transport it to the sieve going up through the meadow which is above the house.”
In an instant it was done and the flies were still there, harassing the woman and buzzing:
– »Lan! Lan! Lan! (work! work! work!) At the end of her patience, she said to her husband:
– » What a marvel are these flies! We absolutely must get rid of it.
– “Yes,” replied the husband, “but we each have to pay their wages
– “Give them,” said the woman, “the ten geese which are a little above the house. At the same time, the geese flew away with loud cries towards the clouds and the flies of Mendiondo did not appear again.
