He goes then to the forest and sits down pensive. It was already
eleven o'clock when the young lady appears to him. She says to him:
"Why are you like that, so sad? Have not I promised that I would help
you? Shut your eyes, but all the worse for you if you shall open them."
She throws a comb into the air, [122] and says:
"Comb, with thy power tear up these oaks with their roots, cut them
into lengths, put the trunks together, and the branches, and the
roots too by themselves."
As soon as it was said it was done. She throws another comb, and says
to it:
"Comb, with thy power turn up this ground, harrow it, and sow the
wheat."
As soon as it was said it was done. She throws another comb, and says:
"Comb, with thy power make a cake of this wheat when you have cut it."
Our lad was curious to know what was taking place, but the young lady
said to him:
"Woe to you and to me if you open (your eyes). [123] Nothing will be
finished for us."
He does not open them, and the cake is cooked. Twelve o'clock was
going to strike. She says to him:
"Go with speed, you have no time to lose."
The lad goes to the king and brings him the cake. The king is
astonished. He says (to himself), "That is a clever lad, that," and he
wishes to be assured of it by looking out of window; and, after having
seen that this huge forest had been torn up, he is astonished. He sends
away the lad, and goes and tells it to his wife. His wife says to him,
"Take care that he is not in league with your daughter." [124]
The husband says to her, "What do you mean? They have never seen
each other."
This husband was a devil. The young lady told our lad that her father
is going to send him to fetch a ring in a river far away. "He will
tell you to choose a sword from the midst of ever so many others,
but you will take an old sabre and leave the others."
The next day his wife told him that he ought to send him to fetch a
ring which he had lost in the bed of a river. He sends him then, and
tells him that he must choose a sword; that he will have quantities
of evil fish to conquer. The lad says to him that he will not have
those fine swords, that he has enough with this old sabre, which was
used to scrape off the dirt.
When he arrived at the bank of the river he sat there weeping, not
knowing what to do. The young lady comes to him, and says:
"What! You are weeping! Did not I tell you that I would always
help you?"
It was eleven o'clock. The young lady says to him:
"You must cut me in pieces with this sabre, and throw all the pieces
into the water."
The lad will not do it by any means. He says to her:
"I prefer to die here on the spot than to make you suffer."
The lady says to him, "It is nothing at all what I shall suffer, and
you must do it directly--the favourable moment is passing by like this,
like this."
The lad, trembling all over, begins with his sabre. He throws all the
pieces into the river; but, lo! a part of the lady's little finger
sticks to a nail in his shoe. The young lady comes out of the water
and says to him:
"You have not thrown everything into the water. My little finger is
wanting." [125]
After having looked for it, he sees that he has it under his foot,
hooked on to a nail. The young lady gives him the ring. She tells
him to go without losing a moment; for he must give it to the king at
noon. He arrives happily (in time). The young lady, as she goes into
the house, bangs the door with all her might and begins to cry out:
"Ay! ay! ay! I have crushed my little finger."
And she makes believe that she has done it there. The king was
pleased. He tells him that on the morrow he must tame a horse and
three young fillies. [126] The lad says to him:
"I will try."
The master gives him a terrible club. The young lady says to him in
the evening:
"The horse which my father has spoken to you about will be himself. You
will strike him with all your might with your terrible club on the
nose, and he will yield and be conquered. The first filly will be
my eldest sister. You will strike her on the chest with all your
force, and she also will yield and will be conquered. I shall come
the last. You will make a show of beating me too, and you will hit
the ground with your stick, and I too will yield, and I shall be
conquered."
The next day the lad does as the young lady has told him. The horse
comes. He was very high-spirited, but our lad strikes him on the
nose, he yields, and is conquered. He does the same thing with the
fillies. He beats them with his terrible club, they yield, and are
conquered; and when the third comes he makes a show of hitting her,
and strikes the earth. She yields, and all go off.
The next day he sees the master with his lips swollen, and with all his
face as black as soot. The young ladies had also pain in the chest. The
youngest also gets up very late indeed in order to do as the others.
The master says to him that he sees he is a valuable servant, and
very clever, and that he will give him one of his daughters for wife,
but that he must choose her with his eyes shut. And the young lady
says to him:
"You will choose the one that will give you her hand twice, and in
any way you will recognise me, because you will find that my little
finger is wanting. I will always put that in front."
The next day the master said to him:
"We are here now; you shall now choose the one you wish for, always
keeping your eyes shut."
He shuts them then; and the eldest daughter approaches, and gives
him her hand. He says to the king:
"It is very heavy, (this hand); too heavy for me. I will not have
this one."
The second one approaches, she gives him her hand, and he immediately
recognises that the little finger is wanting. He says to the king:
"This is the one I must have."
They are married immediately. [127] They pass some days like that. His
wife says to him:
"It is better for us to be off from here, and to flee, otherwise my
father will kill us."
They set off, then, that evening at ten o'clock, and the young lady
spits before the door of her room, saying:
"Spittle, with thy power, you shall speak in my place." [128] And
they go off a long way. At midnight, the father goes to the door of
the lad and his wife, and knocks at the door; they do not answer. He
knocks harder, and then the spittle says to him:
"Just now nobody can come into this room."