So they came back to the cabin, and sat down on a stone outside and told their grandfather what had happened to them.
“And what did you see as you were flying round, and what did All-Rosy tell you?” Witting asked Careful, his eldest grandson. Now Careful was in a real fix, because he had clean forgotten, neither could he remember what All-Rosy had told him. But from under the stone where they were sitting crept a wee hobgoblin—ugly and horned and grey as a mouse.
The goblin tweaked Careful’s shirt from behind and whispered: “Say: I have seen great riches, hundreds of beehives, a house of carved wood and heaps of fine furs. And All-Rosy said to me: ‘Thou shalt be the richest of all the three brothers.’”
Careful never bothered to think whether this was the truth that the imp was suggesting, but just turned and repeated it word for word to his grandfather. No sooner had he spoken than the goblin hopped into his pouch, curled himself up in a corner of the pouch—and there stopped!
Then Witting asked Bluster, the second grandson, what he might have seen in his flight, and what All-Rosy might have told him? And Bluster, too, had noticed nothing and remembered nothing. But from under the stone crept the second hobgoblin, quite small, ill-favoured, horned and smutty as a polecat. The goblin plucked Bluster by the shirt and whispered: “Say: I saw lots of armed men, many bows and arrows and slaves galore in chains. And All-Rosy said to me: ‘Thou shalt be the mightiest of the brothers.’”
Bluster considered no more than Careful had done, but was very pleased, and lied to his grandfather even as the goblin had prompted him. And the goblin at once jumped on his neck and crawled down his shirt, hid in his bosom, and stopped there.
Now the grandfather asked the youngest grandson, Quest, but he, too, could recall nothing. And from under the stone crept the third hobgoblin, the youngest, the ugliest, horned with big horns, and black as a mole.
The hobgoblin tugged Quest by the shirt and whispered: “Say: I have seen all the heavens and all the stars and all clouds. And All-Rosy said to me: ‘Thou shalt be the wisest among men and know what the winds say and the stars tell.’”
But Quest loved the truth, and so he would not listen to the goblin nor lie to his grandfather, but kicked the goblin and said to his grandfather:
“I don’t know, grandfather, what I saw or what I heard.”