‘Not her, mother’s darling!’
‘If I don’t take her, I shall die.’
‘Take her.’
And he took her; he married her. And an order came for him to go to battle. He left her big with child.
The empress called two servants. ‘Take her into the forest and kill her, and bring me her heart and little finger.’
They put her in the carriage, and drove her into the forest; after them ran a whelp. And they brought her into the forest, and were going to kill her, and she said, ‘Kill me not, for I have used you well.’
‘How are we to take her the heart, then?’
‘Kill the whelp, for its heart is just like a human one, and cut off my little finger.’ [[30]]
They killed the whelp, and cut off her little finger, and took out the whelp’s heart.
And she cried, ‘Gather wood for me, and make me a fire; and strip off bark for me, and build me a hut.’