SECOND DOCTOR. It is a great pleasure to us to hear his lordship
jest. But to return to my story, this fellow went all over the town
asking people if they had found the head he had lost; he recovered,
however, and is now a sexton in Jutland.

JEPPE. He could be that even if he hadn't found his head. (All laugh
again.)

FIRST DOCTOR. Does my honored colleague remember the case that
occurred ten years ago, of the man who thought his head was full of
flies? He could not get over the notion, no matter how much they
argued with him, until a clever doctor cured him in this way: he put
on his head a plaster which was covered with dead flies, and after a
while took it off and showed the flies on it to the patient, who
thought they had been drawn out of his head, and was immediately
well again.

I also have heard of another man who, after a long fever, got the
idea that if he made water the country would suffer from a flood. No
one could make him think otherwise; he said he was willing to die
for the common good. This is how he was cured: a message was sent to
him, supposedly from the commandant, saying that the town was
threatened with a siege and there was no water in the moat, and
asking him to fill it to keep the enemy out. The patient was
delighted to be able to save both his fatherland and himself; so he
got rid of his water and of his sickness both at once.

SECOND DOCTOR. I recall another case that occurred in Germany. A
nobleman came to an inn, and when he had dined and wanted to go to