“Oh!” said the master, “I’m at home alike north and south, and east and west, and my name’s Farmer Weathersky. In a year and a day you may come here again, and then I’ll tell you if I like him.” So away they went through the air, and were soon out of sight.
So when the man got home, his old dame asked what had become of her son.
“Well”, said the man, “Heaven knows, I’m sure I don’t. They went up aloft”; and so he told her what had happened. But when the old dame heard that her husband couldn’t tell at all when her son’s apprenticeship would be out, nor whither he had gone, she packed him off again, and gave him another bag of food and another roll of tobacco.
So, when he had walked a bit, he came to a great wood, which stretched on and on all day as he walked through it. When it got dark he saw a great light, and he went towards it. After a long, long time he came to a little but under a rock, and outside stood an old hag drawing water out of a well with her nose, so long was it.
“Good evening, mother!” said the man.
“The same to you”, said the old hag. “It’s hundreds of years since any one called me mother.”
“Can I have lodging here to-night?” asked the man.
“No! that you can’t”, said she.
But then the man pulled out his roll of tobacco, lighted his pipe, and gave the old dame a whiff, and a pinch of snuff. Then she was so happy she began to dance for joy, and the end was, she gave the man leave to stop the night.
So next morning he began to ask after Farmer Weathersky. “No! she never heard tell of him, but she ruled over all the four-footed beasts; perhaps some of them might know him.” So she played them all home with a pipe she had, and asked them all, but there wasn’t one of them who knew anything about Farmer Weathersky.