“O, my son,” said the witch, “there is only one remedy for my sickness, and that is the Melon of Life. I shall never be healed, if I do not eat one of that fruit which you could bring to me.”
“All right, mother,” said the lad, “I will bring to you the Melon of Life.”
He at once started upon the expedition, and after a long journey was guest in the house of an old woman who asked him where he was going. When she heard of the errand, she said to the lad:
“Son, you are deceived; the expedition is a fatal one,—do not go.”
But as the lad insisted, the old woman said:
“Well, then, let me advise you. On your way you will soon come to a mansion, which is the abode of forty giants, who in the day-time go out hunting. But you will find their dame there kneading dough. If you are agile enough to run and suck the nipples of the open breast of that giantess without being seen by her, you are safe; if not, she will make one mouthful of you and devour you.”
The lad went and found as foretold by the old woman. He was clever enough to suck the nipples of the giantess without being seen by her.
“A plague on her who advised you!” exclaimed the angry giantess, “else I would make a good morsel of you. But now having sucked of my breast, you are like one of my own sons. Let me hide you in a box, lest the forty giants should come in the evening and finding you here, devour you.”
And she shut the lad in a box. In the evening the forty giants came, and smelling a human being, said:
“O mother, all the year long we hunt beasts and fowls which we bring home to eat together, and now we smell a human being, whom no doubt you have devoured to-day. Have you not preserved for us at least a few bones which we might chew?”