“Haho! my friend Kiss Miklos, I know thee; in my world-beautiful life I have ever heard thy fame. Long have I been waiting for thee. It is well that thou art here,—that thou hast entered my door,—for thou wilt never go a step farther from me.”
“Oh! for God’s sake,” said Kiss Miklos, “do not pass thy own threshold, for straightway the mother of the dragons will swallow thee with her great mouth.”
The Lead-Melting Friend went out of his chamber, saw the great mouth of the mother of the dragons, and went back in terror to his chamber, where he said this to Kiss Miklos: “Oh, my good friend Kiss Miklos, give counsel. What are we to do?”
“Hast thou much molten lead?”
“Not much, only eighteen tons; it is out there in the caldron boiling.”
“Knowest thou what? I will say one thing and two will come of it. Let us take the handles of that great caldron and pour its contents into the great mouth of the mother of the dragons.”
Here, ’pon my soul! the Lead-Melting Friend put one handle on his shoulder, Kiss Miklos the other on his, brought the unmercifully great caldron to the threshold, and poured the eighteen tons of boiling lead into the old witch’s mouth. The boiling lead burned up the stomach of the mother of the dragons, and straightway she breathed out her cursed soul.
So Kiss Miklos was freed from the mother of the dragons; but, poor fellow, he was like one that goes from the pail into the barrel, for the Lead-Melting Friend caught his Grace by the neck and took him, as he would a straw, to the chamber, where he found this to say,—
“Look here, my good friend Kiss Miklos, in my world-beautiful life I have ever heard thy fame; therefore let us struggle now and see who is stronger, thou or I.” With that the Lead Friend put only his little finger on Kiss Miklos; from that he began to sink, and went down through the lead floor of the chamber the distance of an ell.
“Kiss Miklos, my friend, dost thou wish to fight with me?” asked the Lead Friend. “Thou sayest nothing, so I see that thou dost not; therefore this is my word and speech: I will keep thee in endless slavery unless thou bring me the Green Daughter of the Green King. But ye,” and he turned to the two brothers, “ye may go home in gentle quietness, and take with you the steeds of the moon and the sun, on which are the bright moon and the shining sun, for of them I have no need.”