"My own daughter's tricks are here as before," said the giant; "but if I had my own big axe and wood knife here, I would not be long making a way through this."
He went home for the big axe and the wood knife, and sure he was not long on his journey, and he was the boy behind the big axe. He was not long making a way through the blackthorn.
"I will leave the axe and the wood knife here till I return," says he.
"If you leave 'em, leave 'em," said a hoodie that was in a tree, "we'll steal 'em, steal 'em."
"If you will do that," says the giant, "I must take them home." He returned home and left them at the house.
At the heat of day the giant's daughter felt her father's breath burning her back.
"Put your finger in the filly's ear, and throw behind whatever you find in it."
He got a splinter of grey stone, and in a twinkling there were twenty miles, by breadth and height, of great grey rock behind them.
The giant came full pelt, but past the rock he could not go.
"The tricks of my own daughter are the hardest things that ever met me," says the giant; "but if I had my lever and my mighty mattock, I would not be long in making my way through this rock also."