‘I was brought hither by a giant.’
‘I know full well,’ said he.
‘Are you Ian, the soldier’s son?’ asked she again. And again he answered:
‘Yes, I am; but tell me, why are you weeping?’
‘To-morrow the giant will return from the hunting hill, and I must marry him,’ she sobbed. And Ian took no heed, and only said: ‘How can I bring him home?’
‘Shake the iron chain that hangs outside the gate.’
And Ian went out, and gave such a pull to the chain that he fell down at full length from the force of the shake. But in a moment he was on his feet again, and seized the chain with so much strength that four links came off in his hand. And the giant heard him in the hunting hill, as he was putting the game he had killed into a bag.
‘In the leeward, or the windward, or in the four brown boundaries of the sea, there is none who could give my chain a shake save only Ian, the soldier’s son. And if he has reached me, then he has left my two brothers dead behind him.’ With that he strode back to the castle, the earth trembling under him as he went.
‘Are you Ian, the soldier’s son?’ asked he. And the youth answered:
‘No, of a surety.’