He was determined to see, and went through the door into the fourth room. No cauldron was to be seen there, but on a bench someone was seated who was like a king’s daughter, but, whosoever she was, she was so beautiful that never in the Prince’s life had he seen her equal.
“Oh! in heaven’s name what are you doing here?” said she who sat upon the bench. “I took the place of servant here yesterday,” said the Prince.
“May you soon have a better place, if you have come to serve here!” said she.
“Oh, but I think I have got a kind master,” said the Prince. “He has not given me hard work to do today. When I have cleaned out the stable I shall be done.”
Back home, we shoveled stables all day, with our tongues! Then they beat us and then we drew straws for who got eaten by weasels that night! This place is awesome! Nobody’s waved a weasel at me in a threatening manner at all!
“Yes, but how will you be able to do that?” she asked again. “If you clean it out as other people do, ten pitch forksful will come in for every one you throw out. But I will teach you how to do it; you must turn your pitchfork upside down, and work with the handle, and then all will fly out of its own accord.”
This doesn’t work in my garden. I’ve tried.
“Yes, I will attend to that,” said the Prince, and stayed sitting where he was the whole day, for it was soon settled between them that they would marry each other, he and the King’s daughter, so the first day of his service with the giant did not seem long to him.
I sort of wonder at this point whether she’s agreeing to marry the first guy who comes along in hopes of getting free of the giant, or if the giant has killed ten or twenty princes and she’s been waiting until one came along who tickled her fancy.
But when evening was drawing near she said that it would now be better for him to clean out the stable before the giant came home. When he got there he had a fancy to try if what she had said were true, so he began to work in the same way that he had seen the stable-boys doing in his father’s stables, but he soon saw that he must give up that, for when he had worked a very short time he had scarcely any room left to stand.
I do approve of the fact that he’s actually testing this, rather than just accepting straight out that it’s magic manure.
So he did what the Princess had taught him, turned the pitch-fork round, and worked with the handle, and in the twinkling of an eye the stable was as clean as if it had been scoured. When he had done that, he went back again into the room in which the giant had given him leave to stay, and there he walked backward and forward on the floor, and began to hum and sing.
Then came the giant home with the goats. “Have you cleaned the stable?” asked the giant. “Yes, now it is clean and sweet, master,” said the King’s son.
“I shall see about that,” said the giant, and went round to the stable, but it was just as the Prince had said.
“You have certainly been talking to my Master-maid, for you never got that out of your own head,” said the giant.
The funny thing about this is that the giant is going to say this every time, and yet at no point does he ever do anything about it. Also, apparently the King’s daughter is the Master-maid, and shall henceforth be known as such, even though I get a totally weird cross-dressing vibe out of that, myself.
“Master-maid! What kind of a thing is that, master?” said the Prince, making himself look as stupid as an ass. “I should like to see that.”
“Well, you will see her quite soon enough,” said the giant.
On the second morning the giant had again to go out with his goats, so he told the Prince that on that day he was to fetch home his horse, which was out on the mountain side, and when he had done that he might rest himself for the remainder of the day, “for you have come to a kind master, and that you shall find,” said the giant once more. “But do not go into any of the rooms that I spoke of yesterday, or I will wring your head off,” said he, and then went away with his flock of goats.
“Yes, indeed, you are a kind master,” said the Prince.
Oh, well, sure, he threatened to wring my head off, but still, what a guy! Back home we were beaten with live hedge-hogs for sneezing! This place is like a resort!
“but I will go in and talk to the Master-maid again perhaps before long she may like better to be mine than yours.” So he went to her. Then she asked him what he had to do that day.
“Oh! not very dangerous work, I fancy,” said the King’s son. “I have only to go up the mountain side after his horse.”
You would think after the bit with the stables it might occur to him to be just a teensy bit suspicious.
“Well, how do you mean to set about it?” asked the Master-maid.
“Oh! there is no great art in riding a horse home,” said the King’s son. “I think I must have ridden friskier horses before now.”
That’s how we lost the last six princes. The three before that didn’t figure out the pitchfork trick and suffocated in manure.
“Yes, but it is not so easy a thing as you think to ride the horse home,” said the Master-maid, “but I
