"I give up the wager--you have won," and he takes the bar of iron away
from him. "My father and my mother live at Salamanca; don't throw,
I beg of you, I implore you--you will crush them."
Our madman goes away very happy.
The Tartaro says to him again:
"I will pull up the biggest oak in the forest, and you pull up
another."
He says, "Yes." And the later it grew in the day, the sadder he
became. He was at his prayers. The old woman comes to him again,
and says to him--
"What's the matter with you?"
He tells her the wager he has made with the Tartaro, and how he will
pull up an oak. The old woman gives him three balls of thread, and
tells him to begin and tie them to all the oaks in the forest. [15]
Next day the Tartaro pulls up his oak, an enormously, enormously big
one; and the madman begins to tie, and to tie, and to tie.
The Tartaro asks him:
"What are you doing that for?"
"You (pulled up) one, but I all these."
The Tartaro replies,
"No! No! No! What shall I do to fatten my pigs with without acorns? You
have won; you have won the wager."
The Tartaro did not know what to think about it, and saw that he had
found one cleverer than himself, and so he asks him if he will come
and spend the night at his house.