But the third said: 'It isn't worth the trouble. Let him alone,--he
can't live here; and when he climbs higher up the mountain, the clouds
will roll down and carry him off.'
Then they passed on, and as soon as they were gone, the Huntsman, who
had heard all they said, got up and climbed up to the top of the
mountain.
After he had sat there for a time, a cloud floated over him, and
carried him away.
At first he was swept through the air, but then he was gently lowered
and deposited within a large walled garden, upon a soft bed of
lettuces and other herbs.
He looked around him and said: 'If only I had something to eat; I am
so hungry. And it will be difficult to get away from here. I see
neither apples nor pears, nor any other fruit, nothing but salad and
herbs.'
At last, however, he thought: 'At the worst, I can eat some of this
salad; it does not taste very good, but it will, at least, be
refreshing.'
He picked out a fine head of lettuce, and began eating it. But he had
hardly swallowed a little piece, when he began to feel very odd, and
quite changed. He felt four legs growing, a big head, and two long
ears, and he saw to his horror that he was changed into an ass.
As he at the same time felt as hungry as ever, and the juicy salad was
now very much to his taste, he went on eating greedily.
At last he reached another kind of salad, which he had hardly tasted
when he felt a new change taking place, and found himself back in his
human shape.
After this he lay down and slept off his fatigue.
When he woke next morning he broke off a head of the bad salad, and a
head of the good, and thought: 'These will help me to regain my own,
and also to punish the traitors.'
He put the salad into his wallet, climbed over the wall, and went off
to find the castle of his beloved.
After wandering about for a few days, he was fortunate enough to find
it. Then he stained his face, and disguised himself so that his own
mother would not have known him, and went to the castle to ask for
shelter.
'I am so tired,' he said; 'I cannot go any further.'