“Why are you lamenting there like a child?” asked she of the king’s son.
“Why shouldn’t I lament when the head will be taken from me at sunset?”
“’Tis a long time from this to sunset. Eat your breakfast first of all; see what will happen then,” said she. Taking out the little bundle, she put down before him the best breakfast a man could have. While he was eating, she took the spade, cut out one sod, and threw it away. When she did that, every spadeful of earth in the neck of land followed the first spadeful; the whole neck of land was gone, and before midday there wasn’t a spoonful of water in the lake or the swamp,—the whole place was dry.
“You have your head saved to-day, whatever you’ll do to-morrow,” said she, and she left him.
Toward evening the scolog came, and, meeting the king’s son, cried out, “You are the best man that ever came the way, or that ever I expected to look at.”
The king’s son went to his lodging. In the evening the scolog’s daughter came with supper, and made a bed for him as good as the first one. Next morning the king’s son rose at daybreak, destroyed his bed, and waited to see what would happen.
The scolog came early, and said, “I have a field outside, a mile long and a mile wide, with a very tall tree in the middle of it. Here are two wedges, a sharp axe, and a fine new drawing knife. You are to cut down the tree, and make from it barrels to cover the whole field. You are to make the barrels and fill them with water before sunset, or the head will be taken from you.”
The king’s son went to the field, faced the tree, and gave it a blow with his axe; but if he did, the axe bounded back from the trunk, struck him on the forehead, stretched him on the flat of his back, and raised a lump on the place where it hit him. He gave three blows, was served each time in the same way, and had three lumps on his forehead. He was rising from the third blow, the life almost gone from him, and he crying bitterly, when the scolog’s daughter came with his breakfast. While he was eating the breakfast, she struck one little chip from the tree; that chip became a barrel, and then the whole tree turned into barrels, which took their places in rows, and covered the field. Between the rows there was just room for a man to walk. Not a barrel but was filled with water. From a chip she had in her hand, the young woman made a wooden dipper, from another chip she made a pail, and said to the king’s son,—