“Dear me,” sighed the woman after a while. “This fire draws so poorly! The wind is in the wrong direction. If Finn were here he would turn the house around so that the fire would do better.”
“What Finn can do will be only a small task for me,” said the giant.
He went outside, took the house by one corner and turned it so that it faced in a different direction. You can believe that the woman was thoroughly frightened to see this exhibition of strength. She wondered what chance Finn would have against such a man. Still she believed in his wisdom, so she continued to carry out her instructions. When the giant came back she seemed very calm.
“Well, how is that?” asked the giant when he came in again.
“The fire draws better,” she admitted, “but you did it very clumsily. I thought you were going to shake the house to pieces. Finn lifts it around so easily that he jars not a thing on the shelves. But of course you are not nearly so strong as Finn.”
The giant was so crestfallen that he had nothing to say for some time.
“Oh, dear,” cried the woman a little later. “I am all out of water. Finn promised to split open the rock of the spring before he left, but he forgot all about it. I wonder if you could do it.”
“Of course I can,” said the giant. “Show me the rocks.”
The woman took up a bucket and led him to a place where two rocky hills sent up their peaks very close together.
“That is the place,” she said. “Finn intended pulling them apart when he had time so that we could have water nearby.”