water from the spring, and I shall be alive before you. But don’t forget a bone of me on the tree.”
“How could I kill you,” asked the king’s son, “after what you have done for me?”
“If you won’t obey, you and I are done for,” said Auburn Mary. “You must climb the tree, or we are lost; and to climb the tree you must do as I say.” The king’s son obeyed. He killed Auburn Mary, cut the flesh from her body, and unjointed the bones, as she had told him.
As he went up, the king’s son put the bones of Auburn Mary’s body against the side of the tree, using them as steps, till he came under the nest and stood on the last bone.
Then he took the eggs, and coming down, put his foot on every bone, then took it with him, till he came to the last bone, which was so near the ground that he failed to touch it with his foot.
He now placed all the bones of Auburn Mary in order again at the side of the spring, put the flesh on them, sprinkled it with water from the spring. She rose up before him, and said: “Didn’t I tell you not to leave a bone of my body without stepping on it? Now I am lame for life! You left my little finger on the tree without touching it, and I have but nine fingers.”
“Now,” says she, “go home with the eggs quickly, and you will get me to marry to-night if you can know me. I and my two sisters will be arrayed in the same garments, and made like each other, but look at me when my father says, ’Go to thy wife, king’s son;’ and you will see a hand without a little finger.”
He gave the eggs to the giant.
“Yes, yes!” says the giant, “be making ready for your marriage.”
Then, indeed, there was a wedding, and it
But bed time came, and the giant said, “It is time for thee to go to rest, son of the king of Tethertown; choose thy bride to take with thee from amidst those.”
She put out the hand off which the little finger was, and he caught her by the hand.
“Thou hast aimed well this time too; but there is no knowing but we may meet thee another way,” said the giant.
But to rest they went. “Now,” says she, “sleep not, or else you are a dead man. We must fly quick, quick, or for certain my father will kill you.”
Out they went, and on the blue grey filly in the stable they mounted. “Stop a while,” says she, “and I will play a trick to the old hero.” She jumped in, and cut an apple into nine shares, and she put two shares at the head of the bed, and two shares at the foot of the bed, and two shares at the door of the kitchen, and two shares at the big door, and one outside the house.
The giant awoke and called, “Are you asleep?”
“Not yet,” said the apple that was at the head of the bed.
At the end of a while he called again.
“Not yet,” said the apple that was at the foot of the bed.
A while after this he called again: “Are your asleep?”
“Not yet,” said the apple at the kitchen door.
The giant called again.
The apple that was at the big door answered.
“You are now going far from me,” says the giant.
“Not yet,” says the apple that was outside the house.
“You are flying,” says the giant. The giant jumped on his feet, and to the bed he went, but it was cold– empty.
“My own daughter’s tricks are trying me,” said the giant. “Here’s after them,” says he.
At the mouth of day, the giant’s daughter said that her father’s breath was burning her back.
“Put your hand, quick,” said she, “in the ear of the grey filly, and whatever you find in it, throw it behind us.”
“There is a twig of sloe tree,” said he.
“Throw it behind us,” said she.
No sooner did he that, than there were twenty miles of blackthorn wood, so thick that scarce a weasel could go through it.
The giant came headlong, and there he is fleecing his head and neck in the thorns.
“My own daughter’s tricks are here as before,” said the giant; “but if I had my own big axe and wood knife here, I would not be long making a way through this.”
He went home for the big axe and the wood knife, and sure he was not long on his journey, and he was the boy behind the big axe. He was not long making a way through the blackthorn.
“I will leave the axe and the wood knife here till I return,” says he.
“If you leave ’em, leave ’em,” said a hoodie that was in a tree, 'we’ll steal ’em, steal ’em.”
“If you will do that,” says the giant, “I must take them home.” He returned home and left them at the house.
At the heat of day the giant’s daughter felt her father’s breath burning her back.
“Put your finger in the filly’s ear, and throw behind whatever you find in it.”
He got a splinter of grey stone, and in a twinkling there were twenty miles, by breadth and height, of great grey rock behind them.
The giant came full pelt, but past the rock he could not go.
“The tricks of my own daughter are the hardest things that ever met me,” says the giant; “but if I had my lever and my mighty mattock, I would not be long in making my way through this rock also.”
There was no help for it, but to turn the chase for them; and he was the boy to split the stones. He was not long in making a road through the rock.
“I will leave the tools here, and I will return no more.”
“If you leave ’em, leave ’em,” says the hoodie, “we will steal ’em, steal ’em.”
“Do that if you will; there is no time to go back.”
At the time of breaking the watch, the giant’s daughter said that she felt her father’s breath burning her back.
“Look in the filly’s ear, king’s son, or else we are lost.”
He did so, and it was a bladder of water that was in her ear this time. He threw it behind him and there was a fresh-water loch, twenty miles in length and breadth, behind them.
The giant came on, but with the speed he had on him, he was in the middle of the loch, and he went under, and he rose no more.
On the next day the young companions were come in sight of his father’s house. “Now,” says she, “my father is drowned, and he won’t trouble us any more; but before we go further,” says she, “go you to your father’s house, and tell that you have the likes of me; but let neither man nor creature kiss you, for if you do, you will not remember that you have ever seen me.”
Every one he met gave him welcome and luck, and he charged his father and mother not to kiss him; but as mishap was to be, an old greyhound was indoors, and she knew him, and jumped up to his mouth, and after that he did not remember the giant’s daughter.
She was sitting at the well’s side as he left her, but the king’s son was not coming. In the mouth of night she climbed up into a tree of oak that was beside the well, and she lay in the fork of that tree all night. A shoemaker had a house near the well, and about mid-day on the morrow, the shoemaker asked his wife to go for a drink for him out of the well. When the shoemaker’s wife reached the well, and when she saw the shadow of her that was in the tree, thinking it was her own shadow–and she never thought till now that she was so handsome–she gave a cast to the dish that was in her hand, and it was broken on the ground, and she took herself to the house without vessel or water.
“Where is the water, wife?” said the shoemaker.
“You shambling, contemptible old carle, without grace, I have stayed too long your water and wood thrall.”
“I think, wife, that you have turned crazy. Go you, daughter, quickly, and fetch a drink for your father.”
