When the man began to climb, the tree began to grow above him; he climbed and climbed and climbed until he was worn out with exhaustion and slid down with such force he lay stunned for several hours.
In the meantime the king ordered his hewer to cut down the tree, which he proceeded to do with a great show of confidence. But, strange though it may seem it is nevertheless in strict accord with veracity, before the chopper could make a second stroke the cut he had made had risen above his reach by reason of the swift growth of the tree; and he was fain to desist after a long and hard struggle to strike the blows quickly enough to get two cuts in the same place.
He was at once beheaded by the order of the king, who was frantic with rage at his defeat.
He then ordered his bridgemaker to tie a chain around the tree, hitch twenty oxen to the chain, and thus pull the tree up by the roots.
Now, this driver of oxen was a vainglorious man and earnestly sought emulation in the sight of his majesty, and it was with exceeding readiness he set about obeying the command. He dextrously switched his oxen into line, and they were lusty ones, and with much adroitness took a lockstitch around the trunk of the tree. Then he reached for his whip, and observed the oxen all dangling in the air above his head, bellowing with fear and liked all to have their necks broken by the phenomenal growth of the tree. Had the chain not broken by the efforts of the oxen to free themselves, they had all surely been done to death by the tree.
But the extreme weight of the oxen thus hanging on one side of the tree had made a kink in the trunk, and a peculiar thing happened—the tree now grew upward in kinks.
The king was simply beside himself with passion and with his own hand cut off the head of the oxen driver; and he then commanded his commander of war engines to knock the tree down with a battering ram.
Now, this commander had had nothing to do for ages, as the king had hitherto been a peaceable man, and he felt the honor of receiving a command from his monarch so keenly he strutted about the work of arranging the ram for decisive action.
This was a ponderous piece of machinery, had cost many talents of gold, but had never been brought into actual use. It had an ugly-looking ram which seemed powerful enough to have knocked down a castle with a single blow. It was worked by electricity, and all the commander had to do was to press the button and it would do the kicking.
When all was ready, he pressed the button. The ram shot forward with enormous velocity, only to come at the tree as one of the kinks removed the trunk from its track. And no matter how rapidly the button was pushed, so it was thought, a kink in which there was no tree was always found in front of the shooting ram. So the commander was beheaded, and the king jumped from his horse and danced up and down in a frightful state.