THERE WAS ONCE A SHOEMAKER who gave away shoes to the poor out of the goodness of his heart, often ending up with only enough leather to make one extra pair. Before going to sleep every night, he prepared his equipment and laid the leather on the bench, so that when he woke up the next morning he could immediately start working. And as his consciousness was always clean, he always slept like a log.

One morning, however, he woke up to find that the leather he had bought the previous day was gone from the bench. In its place, a beautiful pair of finely knit shoes was to be found. He grabbed them, examined them with amazement, and decided that whoever had sawn them had done a very good job. A few minutes later an old man with a mysterious green cap knocked on his door, who bought the shoes and gave him two golden coins for them, which is, enough to buy leather for two pairs of shoes instead of one.

The shoemaker took the coins and bought leather for the next day. After placing his equipment on the bench, he went to sleep as usual. The next morning, two pairs of shoes were to be found on the bench, which he sold and bought leather enough for four pairs of shoes.

And so, the story went on, until the point where the shoemaker's pockets were so filled with gold that he could buy as much leather as he wanted and never bother again. At that point, however, he got curious as to whom was playing this strange trick on him. He got up in the middle of the night to see who was doing all the hard work for him while he was sleeping the other days.

He then saw an army of tiny elves on the bench, who knit the leather with great skill and attention to detail. As soon as they noticed him, however, the instantly ran to hide before the shoemaker even had the chance to speak to them.

The next day, the same old man that had passed the first day knocked again on his door, carrying a pair of worn out shoes. "I wanted to thank you", the old man told him, "not for the pair I bought the other day, but rather for the one you gave me many years ago when I was so poor, I had no shoes to put on".

No sooner had the old man finished his phrase and the army of elves came out of their hideouts, climbed on him and hid under his green cap.