Katoma was thrown to the earth, and asked, “Who art thou?”
“The blind hero; I live in this forest thirty years, and I nourish myself only in this way. If I seize a beast, I roast it on the fire; otherwise I should have died of hunger long since.”
“Is it possible that thou art blind from birth?”
“No, not from birth; Anna the Beautiful put out my eyes.”
“Well, brother,” said Uncle Katoma of the Oaken Cap, “and I through her am footless; she cut off my two feet, the cursed woman.”
The two heroes talked to each other, and agreed to live together and find food in common. The blind said to the footless: “Sit on me and show the way; I will serve thee with my feet, and thou shalt serve me with thy eyes.”
He took the footless and carried him. Katoma sat, looked on both sides, and cried out: “To the right; to the left; straight ahead.” They lived in this way some time in the forest and caught food,—hares, foxes, and bears.
Once the footless asked: “Is it possible that we shall live all our lives without company? I have heard that in a certain town there is a rich merchant with his daughter, and the daughter is very charitable to poor people and cripples, and gives alms herself to all. Let us carry her off, brother; let her live with us as a housekeeper.”
The blind man took a wagon, put the footless in it, and drew him to the town. They went straight to the house of the rich merchant. The merchant’s daughter saw them through the window. Straightway she sprang up and went to give them something. She went to the footless: “Take this, poor man, for Christ’s sake.” While taking the gift he seized her by the hand and into the wagon with her. He called to the blind man, who ran so swiftly that no horseman could come up with him.
The merchant sent a party in pursuit, but no one could overtake the two men. The heroes brought the merchant’s daughter to their hut in the forest, and said to her: “Be to us in the place of our own sister; live with us, keep the house, for we have no one to cook a meal for us or to wash our shirts. God will not forget thee for doing this.”