“I have come to deliver the princesses, and only for that.”
“Well, you will find them, but those other two fellows will get them from you by a trick.”
She gave him a rope three hundred fathoms long and told him to bind it round his body. She also gave him some wine and a sponge. Then she said: “Not far from here there is a well. When you come to it, you must say that you will let yourself down into the well, if the other fellows will drink the fountain dry.”
When they got to the well, the captain and the lieutenant began to drink the fountain, but it was just as full as before.
“If we kept on drinking this fountain till doomsday,” they said, “we could not drink it dry.”
So the drummer took the sponge, and at once the water began to disappear, and soon the well was dry. They began to quarrel as to who should go down the well. The one on the right side said the other ought to go, but at last they agreed that the drummer, who was the lightest, should go.
So he went down, and, when he reached the bottom of the well, he found a stone there. He drew it aside, and then he saw the light of the other world. He lowered himself on the rope into the other world. There he saw a beautiful palace. He went towards it. When he reached it, he saw that the table was laid for two persons. He ate his meal and then went into the second room. There he laid himself down to sleep, and when he awoke in the morning, he found the Princess Anne in the third room.
“Welcome,” she said; “what has brought you here?”
He told her that he had come to deliver her.
She said: “I don’t know whether you will succeed in that. Here is a sword; see if you can brandish it.”