“The dead man is in our debt. I am not willing to bury the body, till the two sons who are here, promise to pay the debts.”
“We are not able to pay,” said one of them.
“I have five pounds,” said the king’s son; “I will give them to you to bury the body.”
He gave the five pounds. The body was buried. The king’s son went hunting. He went home in the evening. In the morning of the morrow there was snow. He went out hunting in the snow. He killed a black raven. He stood over it and looked at it. He said in his own mind he would never marry a woman whose head was not as black as the bird’s wing, and her skin as white as the snow, and her cheeks as red as the blood on the snow.
He went home. On the morning of the morrow, when he rose, he washed himself, and he went away to find the woman. When he was going for a time, he met with a red-haired young man. The young man saluted him. He asked him where he was going. The king’s son told him he was going to get one sight of that woman.
“It is better for you to hire me,” said the young man.
“What wages do you be asking?”
“Half of all we gain, to the end of a year and a day.”
The two went on with themselves till the evening came. Said the red man:
“There is a man related to me living in this wood below. Do you wait here till I go down to him.”