“Indeed, you ask me to make a great sacrifice, but if it must be so it must.”
The magician then blew at him, and the man came to the ground. He was very pleased to find the earth once more under his feet, and to have escaped from the power of the wind. Off he hurried to his hut, and at the threshold he met his sweetheart. She cried aloud with amazement when she saw the long-lost peasant, whom she had so long lamented and wept for. With his skinny hands the man put her gently aside, and went into the house, where he found the farmer who had employed him sitting down, and said to him, as he commenced to weep—
“I can no longer stay in your service, and I cannot marry your daughter. I love her very much, as much as the apple of my eye, but I cannot marry her.”
The old farmer wondered to see him, and when he saw his white pinched face and the traces of his suffering, he asked him why he did not wish for the hand of his daughter.
The man told him all about his ride in the air, and the bargain he had made with the magician. When the farmer had listened to it all, he told the poor fellow to keep a good heart, and putting some money in his pocket, went out to consult a sorceress.
Towards evening he returned very merry, and taking the peasant aside, said to him—
“To-morrow morning, before day, go to the witch, and you will find all will be well.”
The wearied peasant, who had not slept for three months, went to bed, but he woke before it was day, and went off to the witch. He found her sitting beside the hearth boiling herbs over a fire. She told him to stand by her, and, suddenly, although it was a calm day, such a storm of wind arose that the hut shook again.
The sorceress then took the peasant outside into the yard and told him to look up. He lifted up his eyes, and—O wonder!—saw the evil magician whirling round and round in the air.
“There is your enemy,” said the woman, “he will trouble you no more. If you would like to see him at your wedding, I will tell you what to do, but he must suffer the torment that he meant to put you to.”