He drank bottle after bottle of the strong waters until he had emptied six.
“Now I am ready!” he shouted.
He mounted his mighty horse and as he rode off he called to his comrades:
“If I need help I’ll throw back a shoe and do you then unleash my dog!”
He rode to the rock on the shore and dismounted. Then he climbed the rock and released the second princess. He told her who he was and as they awaited the arrival of the Six-Headed Serpent he lay at the princess’ feet and she scratched his head.
This time the Serpent came in six mighty swirls with six awful heads that reared up one after another. In terror the second princess hid behind the rock while Six Bottles, mounting his horse, rode boldly down to the water’s edge.
Like his brother Serpent this one, too, came sniffing the air hungrily, muttering the magic rime he had learned from his mother, wicked Suyettar:
“Fee, fi, fo, fum!
I smell a Finn! Yum! Yum!
I’ll fall upon him with a thud!
I’ll pick his bones and drink his blood!
Fee, fi, fo, fum!
Yum! Yum!”
“Stop boasting, son of an evil mother!” Six Bottles cried. “You will have time enough to boast after you fight!”
“Fight?” repeated the Serpent scornfully. “Shall we fight, little one, you and I? Very well! Blow then with your sweet breath, blow out a long level platform of white silver whereon we can meet and try our strength one with the other.”