Away they flew again, flew, and arrived at a third sea. The Eagle dropped the King into a great gulf, so that he sank right up to his neck. And the third time the Eagle jerked him on to its wing, and asked:—
“Well, my lord King! Were you frightened, perchance?”
“I was,” says the King, “but still I said to myself, ‘Perhaps it will pull me out.’”
“Well, my lord King! now you have felt what the fear of death is like! What I have done was in payment of an old score. Do you remember my sitting on an oak, and your wanting to shoot me? Three times you were going to let fly, but I kept on entreating you not to shoot, saying to myself all the time, ‘Perhaps he won’t kill me; perhaps he’ll relent and take me home with him!’”
Afterwards they flew beyond thrice nine lands: long, long did they fly. Says the Eagle, “Look, my lord King! what is above us and what below us?”
The King looked.
“Above us,” he says, “is the sky, below us the earth.”
“Look again; what is on the right hand and on the left?”
“On the right hand is an open plain, on the left stands a house.”
“We will fly thither,” said the Eagle; “my youngest sister lives there.”