His wife then awoke him: ‘Get up now.’
He arose, he saw the whole forest was cut down, and each kind of wood was arranged in lots. He is rejoiced; he returns to the house before night.
‘Finished already?’ the mother, this witch, asks him.
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I am finished.’
She went out to see. The whole forest indeed was felled, and each kind of wood was arranged in piles. At that she was much mortified. Well, she gave him some food; he satisfied himself, and lay down to sleep.
She arose next morning, this witch, and said to him, ‘I will give you my daughter to wife if you cause my forest to become again what it was before, with every leaf in its place again. And if you fail to do that for me, why, then, I will cut off your head.’
Well, he set out; he went on his way. He came to the forest.
‘What shall I do now, unhappy wretch that I am?’
He tried to fasten a branch on to its proper trunk, and the branch fell off again. He bowed himself to the ground and wept. His wife came to him, bringing him food.
‘Why do you weep so, like a calf?’