The giant could not endure the pain, and begged the dwarf to lighten his burden at once, i.e. to lay hold of heaven with one hand again.
When they had reached the other side, the two new friends soon came to the strong man’s house. The giant, wishing to give a dinner to the dwarf, proposed that they should share the work of getting it ready, that one of them should take the bread out of the oven, while the other went to the cellar for wine.
The dwarf saw in the oven an immense loaf which he could never have lifted, so he chose to go to the cellar for wine. But when he had descended, he was unable even to lift the weights on the top of the jars, so, thinking that by this time the giant would have taken the loaf out of the oven, he cried: ‘Shall I bring up all the jars?’
The giant, alarmed lest the dwarf should spoil his whole year’s stock of wine, by digging the jars out of the ground, where they were buried, rushed down into the cellar, and the dwarf went upstairs.
But great was the astonishment of the dwarf when he found that the bread was still in the oven, and that he must take it out, willy-nilly. He succeeded with difficulty in dragging a loaf to the edge of the oven, but then he fell with the hot bread on top of him, and, being unable to free himself, was almost smothered.
Just then the giant came in, and asked what had happened. The dwarf replied: ‘As I told you this morning, I am suffering from a stomach-ache, and, in order to soothe the pain, I applied the hot loaf as a plaster.’ ... Then the giant came up, and said: ‘Poor fellow! How do you feel now, after your plaster?’ ‘Better, thank God,’ replied the dwarf, ‘I feel so much better that you can take off the loaf.’ ... The giant lifted the loaf, and the two then sat down to dinner. Suddenly the giant sneezed so hard that the dwarf was blown up to the roof, and seized a beam, so that he should not fall down again. The giant looked up with astonishment, and asked: ‘What does this mean?’ The dwarf angrily replied: ‘If you do such a vulgar thing again I shall pull this beam out and break it over your stupid head.’ The giant made humble excuses, and promised that he would never sneeze again during dinner time; he then brought a ladder by which the dwarf came down....[1]
[1] Cf. Malcolm: Sketches of Persia, ch. xvi. ’Ameen and the Ghool. Jacobs: More English Fairy Tales, p. 173, and note on p. 239.