That very same hour blood began to drip from the knife in the cottage, and the sister told the younger brother that the elder was dead.
So he answered: “Now I will go, sister mine, and capture the Talking-Bird, the Singing-Tree, and the Water of Life!”
So she blessed him, and he went on and on for very many weary miles, and met the old man on the tree, who gave him another rolling-pin: and the pin rolled up to the mountain; and both were lost, pin and Prince!
The sister waited for many years, but he never came back, and she thought he, too, must have died. So she set out to find the Talking-Bird, Singing-Tree, and Water of Life. She arrived at last at that same oak-tree, saw the old man sitting on it, greeted him, and shaved his head and brows, as she brought scissors and a mirror with her.
“Look,” she said, “what a change it makes in you!” He looked into the mirror: “Yes,” he said; “I am quite a fine man now. I’ve sat here thirty years: never a soul cut my hair, you guessed my need.”
Then she asked him: “Grandfather, how can I get the Talking-Bird, the Singing-Tree, and the Water of Life?”
He answered: “How can you get them? Cleverer folk than you have been after them, and they have all been lost.”
But she persisted: “Please tell me!”
So he gave her another rolling-pin, and told her to follow it: she would hear cries of “Catch her: scotch her,” but she must not look round, for fear of being turned into stone. “At the top you will see a well and the Talking-Bird. As you come back, you will see lofty stones standing upright; sprinkle them all with the Water of Life.”
So on she went: the pin rolled on, far or near, long or short, it reached a steep mountain; and the girl climbed up and heard cries: “Where are you going? We shall kill you! We shall eat you up!”