The good hero sat on his horse of service and went his way. Wherever he journeyed he cast seeds on both sides, and after him forests were rising, just creeping out of the damp earth. He rode one day, he rode a second, a third, and saw in the open field a caravan. On the grass merchants were sitting playing cards, near them a great kettle was hanging, and, though there was no fire under the kettle, it was boiling like a fountain within the pot. “What a wonder!” thought the soldier; “there is no fire to be seen, and in the kettle it is boiling like a fountain,—let me look at it more closely.” He turned his horse to the place and rode up to the merchants.
“Hail, honorable gentlemen!” He had no suspicion that these were not merchants, but all unclean. “That is a good trick of yours,—a kettle boiling without fire; but I have a better one.”
He took out a seed and threw it on the ground,—that moment a full-grown tree came up; on the tree were precious fruits in their beauty, various birds were singing songs, and tom-cats from over the sea were telling tales. From this boast the unclean knew him.
“Ah,” said they among themselves, “this is the man who liberated the princess! Come, brothers, let us drug him with a weed, and let him sleep half a year.”
They went to entertaining him, and drugged him with the magic weed. The soldier dropped on the grass and fell into deep sleep from which he could not be roused. The merchants, the caravan, and the kettle vanished in a twinkle.
Soon after the princess went out in her garden and saw that the tops of all the trees had begun to wither. “This is not for good,” thought she; “it is evident that evil has come to my husband.”
Three months passed. It was time for his return, and there was nothing of him, nothing. The princess made ready and went to search for him. She went by that road along which he had travelled,—on both sides forests were growing, birds were singing, and tom-cats from over the sea were purring their tales. She reached the spot where there were no more trees, the road wound out into the open field; she thought, “Where has he gone to? Of course he has not sunk through the earth.”
She looked, aside by itself was one of the wonderful trees, and under it her dear husband. She ran to him, pushed, and tried to rouse him. No, he did not wake. She pinched him, stuck pins in his side, pricked and pricked him. He did not feel even the pain,—lay like a corpse without motion. The princess grew angry, and in her anger pronounced the spell: “Mayest thou be caught by the stormy whirlwind, thou good-for-nothing sleepy head, and be borne to places unknown!”
She had barely uttered these words when the wind began to whistle, to sound, and in one flash the soldier was caught up by a boisterous whirlwind and borne away from the eyes of the princess. She saw too late that she had spoken an evil speech. She shed bitter tears, went home, lived alone and lonely.
The poor soldier was borne by the whirlwind far, far away beyond the thrice-ninth land, to the thirtieth kingdom, and thrown on a point between two seas; he fell on the very narrowest little wedge. If the sleeping man were to turn to the right, or roll to the left, that moment he would tumble into the sea, and then remember his name.