And he recognised her and cried, ‘Wife, hearken to what I am going to say to you. Ask this dragon of yours where it is that he hides the key of his house.’
‘Very well,’ she assented.
The dragon came home; she flung her arms round his neck and said to him, ‘Husband, tell me truly, where is the key of our house?’
‘What good would it do you if I told you?’ he replied. ‘Well, then, listen. In a certain forest there is a great cask; inside this cask there is a cow; in this cow there is a calf; in this calf a goose; in this goose a duck; in this duck an egg; and it is inside this egg that the key is to be found.’
‘Very good; that is one secret I know.’ [[167]]
She then asked him wherein lay his strength.
The dragon owned this to his wife: ‘When I am dressed as a lord, I cannot be killed; neither could any one kill me when I am dressed as a king; but it is only at the moment I am putting on my boots that I can be killed.’
‘Very good; now I know both these secrets.’
He smelt at his feather, and all his three brothers-in-law appeared beside him. They lay in wait till the moment when the dragon was drawing on his boots, and then they slew him. They betook themselves to that forest, they smashed the cask, they killed the cow that was inside it, they killed the goose that was inside the calf, then the duck that was inside the goose; they broke open the egg, and out of it they drew the key. He took this key, he came back to where his wife was, he opened the oak, and he let his wife out.
‘Now, my brothers-in-law, the good God be with you. As for me, I am setting out to follow my way of happiness; now I shall no more encounter any evil thing.’