“Musha, then, by Mary,” says the boy, “I don’t see any stump in the wood uglier than yourself,” and he struck him so that he sent his head seven furrows and seven ridges from the body.
“Ochone for ever!” says the head. “If I were to get going on the body again, the men of the world—they wouldn’t get me off the body again.”
“I’ll take care of that myself,” says the boy.
When he came home that night the coopers were not able to make enough of vessels for them to hold the quantity of milk that the cows had, and the pigs were not able to eat with the quantity of apples that they had eaten before that.
He was a while in that way herding the cows and everything that was in the castle, he had it. There was no one at all going near the castle, for there was fear on them.
There was a fiery dragon in that country, and he used to come every seven years, and unless there would be a young woman ready bound before him he would drive the sea through the land, and he would destroy the people. The day came when the dragon was to come, and the lad asked his master to let him go to the place where the dragon was coming. “What’s the business you have there?” says the master. “There will be horsemen and coaches and great people there, and the crowds will be gathered together in it out of every place. The horses would rise up on top of you, and you would be crushed under their feet; and it’s better for you to stop at home.”
’ll stop,” said the lad. But when he got them all gone he went to the castle of the three giants, and he put a saddle on the best steed they had, and a fine suit on himself, and he took the first giant’s sword in his hand, and he went to where the dragon was.
It was like a fair there, with the number of riders and coaches and horses and people that were gathered in it. There was a young lady bound to a post on the brink of the sea, and she waiting for the dragon to come to swallow her. It was the King’s daughter that was in it, for the dragon would not take any other woman. When the dragon came out of the sea the lad went against him, and they fought with one another, and were fighting till the evening, until the dragon was frothing at the mouth, and till the sea was red with its blood. He turned the dragon out into the sea at last. He went away then, and said that he would return the next day. He left the steed again in the place where he found it, and he took the fine suit off him, and when the other people returned he was before them. When the people came home that night they were all talking and saying that some champion came to fight with the dragon and turned him out into the sea again. That was the story that every person had, but they did not know who was the champion who did it.
