“I will run and fetch somebody,” said Rose-red.
“You great ninny!” snarled the dwarf, “to want to call more people; you are too many for me now. Can’t you think of anything better?”
“Only don’t be impatient,” said Snow-white. “I have thought of something;” and she took her little scissors out of her pocket, and cut the end of the beard off.
As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he seized a sack filled with gold that was sticking between the roots of the tree; pulling it out, he growled to himself: “You rude people, to cut off a piece of my beautiful beard! May evil reward you!” Then he threw his sack over his shoulders, and walked away without once looking at the children.
Some time afterwards Snow-white and Rose-red wished to catch some fish for dinner. As they came near to the stream they saw that something like a grasshopper was jumping towards the water, as if it were going to spring in. They ran on and recognized the dwarf.
“Where are you going?” asked Rose-red. “You don’t want to go into the water?”
“I am not such a fool as that,” cried the dwarf. “Don’t you see the detestable fish wants to pull me in?”
The little fellow had been sitting there fishing, and, unluckily, the wind had entangled his beard with the line. When directly afterwards a great fish bit at his hook the weak creature could not pull him out, so the fish was pulling the dwarf into the water. It is true he caught hold of all the reeds and rushes, but that did not help him much; he had to follow all the movements of the fish, and was in imminent danger of being drowned. The girls, coming at the right time, held him fast and tried to get the beard loose from the line, but in vain—beard and line were entangled fast together. There was nothing to do but to pull out the scissors and to cut off the beard, in doing which a little piece of it was lost. When the dwarf saw that, he cried out: “Is that manners, you goose! to disfigure one’s face so? Is it not enough that you once cut my beard shorter? But now you have cut the best part of it off, I dare not be seen by my people. I wish you had had to run, and had lost the soles of your shoes!” Then he fetched a sack of pearls that lay among the rushes, and, without saying a word more, he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone.
Soon after the mother sent the two girls to the town to buy cotton, needles, cord, and tape. The road led them by a heath, scattered over which lay great masses of rock. There they saw a large bird hovering in the air; it flew round and round just above them, always sinking lower and lower, and at last it settled down by a rock not far distant. Directly after they heard a piercing, wailing cry. They ran up, and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance, the dwarf, and was going to carry him off. The compassionate children instantly seized hold of the little man, held him fast, and struggled so long that the eagle let his prey go.
When the dwarf had recovered from his first fright, he called out, in his shrill voice: “Could not you deal rather more gently with me? You have torn my thin coat all in tatters, awkward, clumsy creatures that you are!” Then he took a sack of precious stones, and slipped behind the rock again into his den. The girls, who were used to his ingratitude, went on their way, and completed their business in the town. As they were coming home again over the heath they surprised the dwarf, who had emptied his sack of precious stones on a little clean place, and had not thought that any one would come by there so late. The evening sun shone on the glittering stones, which looked so beautiful in all their colors that the children could not help standing still to gaze.