“To see that bit on fire,” said the wizard, “is as bad for me as to lose the head itself.”
“That same is not far from you,” said Cud.
“Sooner than lose the head I will light it.”
That moment he lighted the hill, and Cud saw the very woman he saw the first day sleeping in the little boat come toward him from the hill. He forgot that he had seen Gold Boot or the enchanted hag and her sons. The wizard, seeing this, stopped the centre fire, and Gold Boot was left on the spike. Cud and the woman embraced till they smothered each other with kisses and drowned each other with tears. After that they neither stopped nor stayed till they reached his little ship and sailed away on it; they never delayed till they came to where his two brothers and sister-in-law were under the boat. Cud took out the three bodies, put a drop of the cure on each one, and gave each a blow of the rod. They rose up in good health and sound vigor. All entered the ship and sailed toward Urhu.
They had only the sailing of one day before them, when Cud recollected his promise to bring Gold Boot to his mother.
“Take the wife to Fermalye,” said he to his brothers. “I must go for Gold Boot; the king will give you food till I come. If you were to go to our own father he’d think that it is dead I am.”
Cud drew out his knife, cut a slip from a stick; this he threw into the sea. It became a ship, and away he sailed in that ship, and never stopped till he entered the harbor next the enchanted field. When he came to Gold Boot he gave him a drop of cure and a blow of the rod. He rose from the spike, well and strong. The two embraced then, went to the ship, and sailed away. They had not gone far when such a calm came that they cast anchor near shore, and Gold Boot began to get dinner. It wasn’t long he was at it when they saw food at the foot of a tree on the shore.
“Who would be getting trouble with cooking, and such food as that on the shore?” said Gold Boot.
“Don’t mind that food,” replied Cud.
“Whatever I think of I do,” said Gold Boot.