‘Ever since you’ve been away I’ve had it at the fire, but it isn’t cooked, for it’s old meat.’
They passed the night. The third day they left another cook. The three of them went to hunt; and those two never told what they had undergone. Again the old man came, demanded food.
‘Not a morsel, for they’ll come from hunting, and I should have nothing to give them.’ [[76]]
He went into the wood, and cut four wedges, and fastened him to the earth by the hands and feet, and ate up all the food, and let him go. They came from hunting. ‘Have you cooked the food?’
‘The minute you went away I put the meat in the pot; but it isn’t cooked, for it’s old.’
The fourth day Mare’s Son remained as cook, and he cooked the food nicely.
The old man came. ‘Give me something to eat, for I’m hungry.’
‘Come here, and I’ll give you some.’
He called him into the house, and caught him by the beard, and led him to a beech-tree, and drove his axe into the beech, and cleft it, and put his beard in the cleft, and drew out the axe, and drove in wedges by the beard, and left him there. They came from hunting; he gave them to eat. ‘Why didn’t you cook as good food as I?’
They ate.