“Nay, your face is changed,” said the bride. “I pray you what is the matter?”
The lad told her what the Prince had ordered him to do.
“Never mind, husband,” said she, and putting her head out of the window toward the sea, she cried:
“Mamma, mamma! send us up our small tent, please. We want to go a-camping.”
The small tent was thrown up from the sea. The lad took it to the Prince. It took his servants seven days to pitch it. Not only the Prince’s army, but all his people were accommodated in it, and yet half of it was empty.
“This is right well,” said the Prince, “but you see there is no furniture to put on the ground. I want you to bring me a rug to suit the tent exactly. If you don’t bring it in three days your head shall be cut off.”
The lad told his wife, and she asked her mother to send up the small rug, which was taken to the Prince. The Prince next day bade the lad fetch him a cluster of grapes so large that all his army might eat and not be able to finish it. On the following day that also was brought. Then the Prince wanted him to bring him a three-day old baby who could walk and talk like grown-up people. This time the lad was dismayed, because it was a sheer impossibility, and he thought he would surely lose his head this time.
“Never mind that, husband,” said his wife, in the evening; and turning toward the sea, she cried:
“Mamma! send up here the baby for a while, we want to see him.”
The baby was given up, and the lad took him to the Prince, still doubting in his mind whether the baby could do what the Prince required. On the way the lad’s foot slipped and the baby was shaken.