No. 44.—The Three Dragons
A gentleman had three daughters. They went one day to a pond to bathe. There came a dragon, and carried them off. He hurried with them to a rocky cave. There they remained twelve years, without their father seeing them again or knowing where they were. There was a sly-boots called Bruntslikos. He went to the girls’ father, and told him he would do his best to find his daughters. The father promised him one of them to wife, if he could find them. He took the road, and stayed seven years away; then he demanded a horse of the girls’ father. He mounted it, and rode a whole year through the forest. At last he came to a tavern; two fellows there asked him where he was going to. He told them that he was going in search of three maidens. They offered to go with him. ‘Good,’ he thought, ‘three will make merrier company.’
As they went through the forest, the horse stamped his foot against the entrance to the dragon’s cave, and pawed against it. Then Bruntslikos knew that those he was seeking were there. It was a great cavity in the rock. He left the two comrades on the brink above, and made them lower him by a rope to fetch up one of the maidens. He said he must fetch her at any cost. When he came down, she sat alone in the house; the dragon has gone to hunt hares.
When he came to her, she asked, ‘How comest thou here, my beloved? Here must thou lose thy life.’
‘I have no fear,’ he answered.
‘Never a bird comes flying here,’ she said, ‘but thou hast come.’[5] [[152]]
‘I will see, though,’ she thought, ‘what sort of a hero he is,’ and bade him brandish a sword; but he could not so much as raise it from the ground. But there was wine there. She made him drink thereof; straightway he felt himself stronger. And she bade him now lift the sword; he fell to so cutting and thrusting with it in the air that he now no more dreaded the dragon.
‘Now I am strong,’ he said, ‘I will soon help thee out of here.’
‘God grant thou may,’ she said, ‘then will I be thy bride.’