He cowered down upon the ground, and fell a-weeping. He sees his wife come; she brings him something to eat and drink.
‘Why are you weeping?’ asks his wife.
‘How can I refrain from weeping when your mother has given me an axe and a spade of wood, and I have broken them both already.’
‘Hush, then, weep not; all will go well. Only eat and be filled.’
He ate and was filled. [[192]]
‘Come, now, I am going to louse your head.’[8]
He went to her; he laid his head in her lap; and he fell asleep. His wife put her fingers into her mouth and whistled. A great number of devils came to her.
‘What is it that the great lady demands of us?’
‘That this entire forest be cut down, and that the logs be set in piles on one side, and the brushwood on the other; each kind has to be ranged in separate piles.’
The devils set themselves to this task, and cut down the whole forest, so that not a stick of it remained standing, and all the wood was arranged in piles.