"So you have been to the White Witch too?" said the tall man. "Then you shall come, if you like, and dig potatoes while I go and learn to dance."
So she took the spade and dug all day until the night-time, and then she lay down under the high prickly hedge and went to sleep in the starlight. And in the morning the tall man came back again and spoke with her.
"Are you tired of your new game yet?" he asked.
"It is not a game," she said, and looked at the blisters and the scratches on her soft white hands.
Then the tall man took up the potatoes she had dug and went away for another day.
And every morning he came and asked the same question, and every morning the Princess gave him the same answer; and after that he took away the potatoes she had dug.
At the end of a month the Princess was so tired with digging all day, and her hands were so sore with holding the heavy spade, that she felt she could do no more.
"I am sure I must be going to die," she said, as she looked up at the stars. But she did not die, and the next morning the tall man came as before.
"But you have dug no potatoes since yesterday, Gyldea," he said to her.
"I am too tired; look at my hands," she said, and held them out to him.