At the bottom of a neighbouring well, the dwarf next pointed out the ghost of Nero, who, in punishment for his manifold sins, was condemned to blow huge bubbles up to the surface without ever stopping to rest. In the Aucenda, near Gex, the dwarf also showed him the spirits of dishonest lawyers, who, having fished in figuratively troubled waters all their lives, were now condemned to do the same in the ice-cold stream, where they were further employed in brewing the storms and freshets which desolate that region.
Before the bewildered tailor had time to comment upon these awful sights, he was whisked away to La Soye, where a red-headed maiden told him she would give him a golden calf, provided he would kiss her thrice. Reasoning that it was far from Conthey, and that his wife could not possibly see him, the tailor pursed up his lips, and was about to bestow the first kiss, when the red-headed girl was suddenly transformed into a hideous, writhing dragon. This metamorphosis so terrified the poor tailor that he buried his heels in the flanks of the black ram, which darted away at such a rattling pace that they soon reached Sion.
There the dwarf transferred the tailor to the back of the three-legged white horse which haunts this city, and as they galloped away, the tailor saw that they were followed by a fire-breathing boar, the ram, the dragon, the red-headed girl, the ghosts of Plan Nevé with their sieves, and the dripping lawyers. In the dim distance he could also descry Nero, still blowing huge bubbles, and the deceased chorister holding a dead trout between his teeth.
This strange procession now swept along the Rhône valley to the Baths of Leuk, where they were joined by a mischievous sprite who rapped loudly at every door as he darted past. At Zauchet, their ranks were further increased by the wraith of a giant ox, whose horns glowed like live coals and whose tail consisted of a flaming torch.
Next they sped down the Visp valley, where a woman once refused food to Our Lord when he journeyed through the land. In punishment for this sin, the hamlet where she dwelt sank beneath the ground, and a stream now runs over the broad, flat stone which formed the altar of the village church.
Arriving at Zermatt, the dwarf and tailor exchanged their mount for a blue-haired donkey, whose loud bray, added to the snorts, groans, hisses, and cries of their ghostly train, created an awful din in the peaceful valleys through which they swept like the wind. Arriving finally at Lake Champey, the Blue Ass swam to an island, where the Devil of Corbassière and a number of witches were madly treading the swift measures of an infernal dance.
The tailor, seeing this, sprang from his steed to join them; but when he offered to kiss the youngest and prettiest of the witches, the Devil of Corbassière angrily flung him head first into the lake. As the witches belaboured him with their broomsticks whenever he tried to creep ashore on the island, the tailor finally struck out for the other bank, where he sank down, panting and exhausted, and closed his eyes.
Suddenly he felt a small hand laid upon him, and thinking it must be one of his recent tormentors, he cried aloud in terror, “Leave me alone, you witch!”
A vigorous box on his ear made him open his eyes with a start, just in time to see his wife standing over him with upraised hand, saying, “I’ll teach you to call me a witch!”
The tailor now protested that he had done nothing of the kind; but although his wife declared that he had merely fallen asleep over his work, he knew that his spirit had journeyed all through the Valais, in company with the dwarf and the demons which haunt the land.