They laughingly led him to a great hole in the ground, which was as smooth as glass, and he afterward learned it was a glass tube which ran to the center of the earth. As he stood looking down it and meditating they said many had gone down but not one had ever returned.
His quick mind had solved the difficulty, for to the one nearest him he said:
“Will you give me as a talisman one hair from the top of your head and permit me to select it?”
The others became quite hilarious at this, and twitted him on making his first guess a lie.
When he had obtained the hair he turned to the next one and made of her a similar request, and so on until he had a hair from the head of each one. Then he braided them together and asked:
“You say many have gone down but none has returned. What became of them?”
“They have fallen and died, for they knew not how to get down,” was their answer.
He then took from his pocket a small phial, removed the cork, took some of the contents on the tips of his fingers and rubbed it on the rope made of the hair of their heads. It at once began to grow in length much faster than it grew in size, and ere he had used the contents of the phial the end had touched the center of the earth.
Then he said to them: “You hold this end and I will go to the center of the earth, and wait you here and hold the rope until I come. You will promise that, as I wish it and you have promised to grant me whatever I wish.”
They agreed. He wrapped the rope about a stick of glass and quickly disappeared.