Then the young man in his turn began to question him, and asked him how many children he had.
“Only two daughters,” replied the old man, “and such good and beautiful girls they are too,” he added.
“I should much like to see them,” said the stranger.
The old man, greatly delighted, led the way back to his cottage, where his two eldest daughters had hurried on their best frocks and decked themselves with all the jewels out of Helga’s casket.
The stranger expressed himself as being very pleased with the girls.
“But,” he asked, “why has one of your daughters got her hand tied up with a cloth, and the other one a handkerchief fastened across her nose?”
At first the father said they had met with an accident, and slipped down the cliffs; but when the stranger pressed for further particulars, the story of the dogs and the cave had to be told.
“But surely you have another daughter?” said the stranger; “one who, I know, is always kind to all animals.”
At first the old man and his wife both declared they only had those two daughters; but when the stranger kept on urging him, he at last admitted that he had another girl. “But she is so ugly, lazy, and wicked,” he added, “that she is more like some wild animal than a human being.”
But the stranger said he did not mind that at all, and that he must see her. So the old man was obliged at last to call Helga.