Coldfeet gave good health to the old man, and got a hundred thousand welcomes with a night’s lodging.
“Why did you come, and where are you going?” asked the old man. “Fourteen hundred years am I in this house alone, and not a living soul came in to see me till yourself came this evening.”
“I am going to Lonesome Island, if I can find it.”
“I have no knowledge of that place, but if you are a swift walker you will come to-morrow evening to an old man like myself, only older; he will tell you all that you need, and show you the way to the island.”
Next morning early Coldfeet went away after breakfast, leaving good health behind him and taking good wishes for the road. He travelled this day as on the other two days, only more swiftly, and at nightfall gave a greeting to the third old man.
“A hundred thousand welcomes,” said the old man. “I am living alone in this house twenty-one hundred years, and not a living soul walked the way in that time. You are the first man I see in this house. Is it to stay with me that you are here?”
“It is not,” said Coldfeet, “for I must be moving. I cannot spend two nights in the one house till I go to Lonesome Island, and I have no knowledge of where that place is.”
“Oh, then, it’s the long road between this and Lonesome Island, but I’ll tell where the place is, and how you are to go, if you go there. The road lies straight from my door to the sea. From the shore to the island no man has gone unless the queen brought him, but you may go if the strength and the courage are in you. I will give you this staff; it may help you. When you reach the sea throw the staff in the water, and you’ll have a boat that will take you without sail or oar straight to the island. When you touch shore pull up the boat on the strand; it will turn into a staff and be again what it now is. The queen’s castle goes whirling around always. It has only one door, and that on the roof of it. If you lean on the staff you can rise with one spring to the roof, go in at the door, and to the queen’s chamber.
“The queen sleeps but one day in each year, and she will be sleeping to-morrow. The sword of light will be hanging at the head of her bed, the loaf and the bottle of water on the table near by. Seize the sword with the loaf and the bottle, and away with you, for the journey must be made in a day, and you must be on this side of those hills before nightfall. Do you think you can do that?”
“I will do it, or die in the trial,” said Coldfeet.