Then the soldiers said, ‘What a silly you are, old fellow! How will he come and steal your mare?’
‘He will, though, deary. Isn’t he a thief?’
‘Shut up, old fellow. He won’t steal your mare; and if he does, we’ll pay you for her.’
‘He will steal her, deary; he’s a thief.’
‘Why, old boy, he’s dead. We’ll give you our written word that if he steals your mare we will pay you three hundred groats for her.’
Then the old man said, ‘All right, deary, if that’s the case.’
So he stayed there. He placed himself near the fire, and a drowsy fit took him, and he pretended to sleep. The soldiers kept going to the jar of wine, and drank every drop of the wine, and got drunk. And where they fell there they slept, and took no thought. The old chap, the thief, who pretended to sleep, arose and stole the corpse from the gallows, and put it on his mare, and carried it into the forest and buried it. And he left his mare there and went back to the fire, and pretended to sleep. [[44]]
And when the soldiers arose, and saw that neither the corpse was there nor the old man’s mare, they marvelled, and said, ‘There! my comrades, the old man said rightly the thief would steal his mare. Let’s make it up to him.’
So by the time the old man arose they gave him four hundred groats, and begged him to say no more about it.
Then when the king arose, and saw there was no thief on the gallows, he went to the old thief in the prison, and said to him, ‘There! they have stolen the thief from the gallows, old thief. What am I to do?’