She gave him a golden ring, which she cut in half; the one half she gave to him, kept the other herself.
Then came the dragon home. When he still was fourteen miles off, he flung a hammer there, weighing nearly fifteen hundredweight. When he came, he said to his wife, ‘I smell human flesh.’
She said, ‘Dear husband, but how could that be? How could it get here? Hither comes never a bird. How could human flesh get here?’
‘But I feel,’ he said, ‘that a man’s here. Don’t talk nonsense.’ And he came nearer, and called, ‘Brother-in-law!’
But Bruntslikos was hidden beneath a trough. After the dragon had called him thrice, he sprang out, faced him, and cried, ‘What wilt thou of me? I fear thee not.’
The dragon answered, ‘What need to tell me thou fearest me not? I will soon put thy strength to the test.’
Leaden dumplings were served up for the dragon’s dinner, and he invited Bruntslikos to partake. ‘I don’t care for such dumplings,’ said Bruntslikos, ‘but give me wine to drink, and I’m your man.’
When they had drunk their fill, the dragon challenged Bruntslikos to wrestle with him; straightway he faced the dragon. The dragon drove him into the earth to the waist, then drew him out again. In the second bout Bruntslikos drove the dragon into the earth to the neck, then grasped the sword and began to cut off his heads (he had twelve). Bruntslikos struck them all off; only the middle one he could not sever. Then said the maiden, ‘One smashing blow on it, and he will die at once.’ So he killed him, and straightway the dragon was turned to pitch. But he took all the [[153]]tongues out of his heads, and put them in his pocket. Then he collected all the money that was there, put his bride in a basket and himself as well. And the two comrades had been waiting for him above, and, when he called, they drew him up with his bride. But when he was up with her, the two fellows began to quarrel over the maiden; she was so fair, they wanted her for wife.
But he said, ‘There still remain two more maidens; of them you can take your choice.’
‘I,’ she said, ‘will never desert Bruntslikos; he shall be my husband. We have plighted ourselves to all eternity, for he has saved my life.’