"I have come to ask you to let me give you my dog for one of your hogs."
The lad was ready to close the bargain, and gave a gray hog in exchange
for the big dog. As he was going the old man said--
"I think you will be satisfied with your bargain. The dog is not like
other dogs. His name is Hold-fast, and if you tell him to hold, hold he
will whatever it may be, were it even the fiercest giant."
Then he departed, and the lad thought that for once, at all events,
fortune had been kind to him.
When evening had come, the lad called his dog, and drove the hogs to his
home in the forest. When the old woman learnt how her son had given away
the gray hog for a dog, she flew into a great rage, and gave him a good
beating. The lad begged her to be quiet, but it was of no use, for she
only seemed to get the more angry. When the boy saw that it was no good
pleading, he called to the dog--
"Hold fast."
The dog at once rushed forward, and, seizing the old woman, held her so
firmly that she could not move; but he did her no harm. The old woman
now had to promise that she would agree to what her son had done; but
she could not help thinking that she had suffered a great misfortune in
losing her fat gray hog.
The next day the boy went once more to the forest with his dog and the
two hogs. When he arrived there he sat down and played upon his pipe as
usual, and the dog danced to the music in such a wonderful manner that
it was quite amazing. While he thus sat, the old man with the gray beard
came up to him out of the forest. He was accompanied by a dog as large
as the former one. When the boy saw the fine animal, he said to
himself--
"I wish I had that dog as a companion in this wood. Then there would be
no danger."