“We are here now; you shall now choose the one you wish for, always keeping your eyes shut.”
He shuts them then; and the eldest daughter approaches, and gives him her hand. He says to the king:
“It is very heavy, (this hand); too heavy for me. I will not have this one.”
The second one approaches, she gives him her hand, and he immediately recognises that the little finger is wanting. He says to the king:
“This is the one I must have.”
They are married immediately.[55] They pass some days like that. His wife says to him:
“It is better for us to be off from here, and to flee, otherwise my father will kill us.”
They set off, then, that evening at ten o’clock, and the young lady spits before the door of her room, saying:
“Spittle, with thy power, you shall speak in my place.”[56] And they go off a long way. At midnight, the father goes to the door of the lad and his wife, and knocks at the door; they do not answer. He knocks harder, and then the spittle says to him:
“Just now nobody can come into this room.”