"Good heavens! what has brought you here?" said the princess as soon as she saw him. "It's sure to be your death; no one can kill the giant who lives here, for he hasn't got any heart."--"But now when I am here, I suppose I had better try my strength with him," said Ash-ie-pat-tle, "and I must see if I can't release my brothers who are standing outside here, turned into stone, and I will try to save you as well." "Well, since you will stop, we must try and do the best we can," said the princess. "You must creep under the bed over there and listen well to what he says when I speak with him, and be sure to lie as quiet as you can." So Ash-ie-pat-tle crept under the bed, and no sooner had he done so than the giant came home. "Ugh, what a smell of Christian blood there is here," shouted the giant.--"Yes, a magpie flew over the house with a man's bone and let it fall down the chimney," said the princess; "I made haste to throw it out, but the smell doesn't go away so soon." So the giant said no more about it, and when evening came, they went to bed. When they had lain awhile, the princess said: "There is one thing I wanted so very much to ask you about, if I only dared." "Well, what can that be?" asked the giant. "I should so like to know where your heart is, since you don't carry it about you," said the princess. "Oh, that's a thing you needn't know anything about," said the giant, "but if you must know, it's under the stone slab in front of the door."--"Ah, ha! we shall soon see if we can't find that," said Ash-ie-pat-tle to himself under the bed. Next morning the giant got up very early and set out for the wood, but no sooner was he out of sight than Ash-ie-pat-tle and the princess commenced looking for the heart under the door-slab, but although they dug and searched all they could, they could not find anything. "He has made a fool of me this time," said the princess; "but I must try him again." So she picked all the prettiest flowers she could find and strewed them over the door-slab, which they put in its right place again. When the time came for the giant to return home, Ash-ie-pat-tle crept under the bed, and he had scarcely got well under before the giant came in. "Ugh, what a smell of Christian blood there is here," screamed the giant.--"Yes, a magpie flew over the house and dropped a man's bone down the chimney," said the princess; "I made haste to clear it away, but I suppose the smell hasn't gone away yet." So the giant said no more about it, but in a little while he asked who it was that had been strewing flowers around the door-slab. "Why, I, of course," said the princess.--"And what's the meaning of it?" asked the giant.--"Well, you know I am so fond of you," said the princess, "that I couldn't help doing it when I knew that your heart was lying under there."--"Ah, indeed," said the giant, "but it isn't there after all."