“I have taken it myself.”
“I must eat you.”
He approaches, but our shepherd gives him a little blow with his stick, and he begins to cry out,
“Oy, oy, oy!—spare my life!”
“Tell me, then, how many you are where you live?”
“We were seven yesterday, but to-day we are only six, with me.”
He gives him another blow, and he falls stark dead. And the shepherd hides him as well as he can in a hedge, and then he returns home with his sheep, well filled. That evening the sheep gave him a great deal of milk, and he made fine cheeses with it.[13] The master and mistress were delighted to have such a servant. The next day he goes off again. As soon as he opened the stable-door the sheep start off running to the good pasture and fine herbage, and the same things (happen again). At the end of a moment there appears a bear, who asks him why he comes there into those parts. Our shepherd, with his stick, gives him a little blow on the neck, and the bear begins to cry,
He asks him,
“How many are you there where you live?”