They parted there; she went to her own place and he went to the scolog’s castle, put his right foot inside the threshold, his left foot outside, and his head under the lintel. “God save you!” called he to the scolog.
“A blessing on you!” cried the scolog, “but my curse on your teacher. I’ll give you lodgings to-night, and I’ll come to you myself in the morning;” and with that he sent a servant with the king’s son to a building outside. The servant took a bundle of straw with some turf and potatoes, and, putting these down inside the door, said, “Here are bed, supper, and fire for you.”
The king’s son made no use of food or bed, and he had no need of them, for the scolog’s daughter came soon after, spread a cloth, took a small bundle from her pocket, and opened it. That moment the finest food and drink were there before them.
The king’s son ate and drank with relish, and good reason he had after the long journey. When supper was over, the young woman whittled a small shaving from a staff which she brought with her; and that moment the finest bed that any man could have was there in the room.
“I will leave you now,” said she; “my father will come early in the morning to give you a task. Before he comes, turn the bed over; ’twill be a shaving again, and then you can throw it into the fire. I will make you a new bed to-morrow.”
With that, she went away, and the young man slept till daybreak. Up he sprang, then turned the bed over, made a shaving of it, and burned it. It was not long till the scolog came, and this is what he said to the king’s son, “I have a task for you to-day, and I hope you will be able to do it. There is a lake on my land not far from this, and a swamp at one side of it. You are to drain that lake and dry the swamp for me, and have the work finished this evening; if not, I will take the head from you at sunset. To drain the lake, you are to dig through a neck of land two miles in width; here is a good spade, and I’ll show you the place where you’re to use it.”
The king’s son went with the scolog, who showed the ground, and then left him.
“What am I to do?” said the king’s son. “Sure, a thousand men couldn’t dig that land out in ten years, and they working night and day; how am I to do it between this and sunset?”
However it was, he began to dig; but if he did, for every sod he threw out, seven sods came in, and soon he saw that, in place of mending his trouble, ’twas making it worse he was. He cast aside the spade then, sat down on the sod heap, and began to lament. He wasn’t long there when the scolog’s daughter came with a cloth in her hand and the small bundle in her pocket.