Once upon a time there was a shipmaster who had a boat. He never slept in it himself, though, and neither did his servant. One day he got a new servant. When this servant got up in the morning, he saw that the ship was lying the other way round. He was sure he had not tightened the ship that way the night before.

So he told his boss, who said, "Oh, that's nothing. It happens every night. That's the reason why we don't have the stomach to spend the night in it."

"Well, I have," said the servant. That night he decided to lie awake in the fore-cabin.

That night, all of a sudden he heard a terrible racket.

Several people were walking and running across the deck, and he heard someone shouting, "Release the ropes, raise the sails, shift that helm."

And after a while, the ship sailed away. Some time later, the ship was lying still. The servant then climbed up towards the deck, put his head through the hatchway, and saw a branch of a Chinese orange tree, with Chinese oranges on it, hanging over the ship. He then saw that he was in China, broke off the branch, took it back down with him, and pretended to be asleep again.

Shortly after, he heard the same noises, the same commands, and again, the ship started moving. As soon as all was quiet once more, he had another look and saw that the ship was back in its old place at the Langendijk, for this is where it all happened.

In the morning he went to the shipmaster to tell him everything. He showed him the branch with Chinese oranges as proof. The shipmaster's wife then said, "Well, you've been lucky that there was familiar folk among them, 'cause otherwise you wouldn't have got away with it and they would surely have killed you."

The servant found this strange and started thinking about it.

One day he asked his boss whether his wife was always home at night.

"Oh yes," he said, "but what of it?"

"Well, in that case, I would like to spend the night in your room sometime, if I may."

And so it happened.

After midnight, the wife appeared to be sleeping very quietly. Then the servant said "Let s try and wake her up, just for the fun of it."

And so they tried. But they did not succeed, no matter what they did.

Then the servant said, "Let's put her in the bed in the other room."

And so it happened. After a while, they heard groaning, moaning, weeping, and so on.

As soon as the servant thought this had gone on long enough, he said "Let's put youe wife back in her own bed now."

Hardly had she been put back, when the moaning stopped and the wife woke up – her spirit had left her body and of course, it initially had some trouble finding its way back. When the body was lying in its original place, the spirit went back in and then the wife woke up.

When. she saw her husband and the servant, she said, "Well, are you up yet? Please hurry to bring us a cup of coffee then, because I'm sure I must have slept very soundly."

The boss and his servant, however, had heard and seen enough. The wife was a witch and it was under her command that the ship went to China every night.