"So much the better, so much the better; that will be of use to you."
The captain goes to tell the serpent that there is one who can catch
a hare running. The serpent says to him:
"You will land the runner at this port, and you will tell him that he
must go to the top of a little mountain; that there is a little house
there, and an old, old woman in it; and that there is there a steel,
a flint, and a tinder-box; and that he must bring these three things
on board one by one, making a separate journey each time."
Our runner goes off, and comes to this house. He sees the old woman,
with red eyes, spinning at the threshold of her door. He asks her
for a drop of water, that he has walked a long way without finding
any water, and will she give him a little drop? The old woman says
to him, "No." He begs her again, telling her that he does not know
the roads in the country, nor where he is going to. This old woman
kept constantly looking at the chimney-piece, and she said to him:
"I am going to give you some, then."
While she went to the pitcher, our runner takes the steel off the
chimney-piece, and goes off at full speed, like the lightning; but
the old woman is after him. At the very instant that he is about
to leap into the ship the old woman catches him, and snatches off a
bit of his coat, and a piece of the skin of his back with it. [100]
The captain goes to the serpent, and says to him:
"We have got the steel, but our man has got the skin of his back
torn off."
He gives him a remedy, and a good drink, and tells him that the man
will be cured by to-morrow, but that he must go again next day.
He says, "No, no; the devil may carry off this old woman, if he likes,
but I will not go there any more."
But, as he was cured next day by giving him that good drink again,
he sets off. He dresses himself in a shirt without arms, and in an
old torn pair of trousers, and goes to the old woman's, saying that
his ship is wrecked on the shore, that he has been wandering about
for forty-eight hours, and he begs her to let him go to the fire to
light his pipe.