Now the king thought it best tell the queen all that had happened and how matters stood. “All this,” said the queen, “is the rede of your stepmother, and it would be well indeed if she could do you no more harm by it than she has already tried to do. She has chosen such difficulties as she thought you would not easily get over, but I can do something here. The tent is in my possession, so there is that difficulty over. The water you have to get is a short way hence but very hard of approach. It is in a well and the well is in a cave hellishly dark. The well is watched by seven lions and three serpents, and from these monsters nobody has ever returned alive; and the nature of the water is that it has no healing power whatever unless it be drawn when all these monsters are awake. Now I will risk the undertaking of drawing the water.” So the queen made herself ready to go to the cave, taking with her seven oxen and three pigs. When she came before the cave she ordered the oxen to be killed and thrown before the lions and the pigs before the serpents. And while these monsters tore and devoured the carcases the queen stepped down into the well and drew as much water as she wanted. And she left the cave just in time, as the beasts finished devouring their bait. After this the queen went home to the palace, having thus got over the second trial. Then she came to her husband and said, “Now two of the tasks are done, but the third and indeed the hardest, of them is left. Moreover, this is one you must perform yourself, but I can give you some hints as to whither to go for it. I have got a half brother who rules over an island not far from hence. He is three feet high, and has one eye in the middle of his forehead. He has a beard thirty ells long, stiff and hard as a hog’s bristles. He has a dog’s snout and cat’s ears, and I should scarcely fancy he has his like in the whole world. When he travels he flings himself forward on a staff of fifty ells’ length, with a pace as swift as a bird’s flight. Once when my father was out hunting he was charmed by an ogress who lived in a cave under a waterfall, and with her he begat this bugbear. The island is one-third of my father’s realm, but his son finds it too small for him. My father had a ring, the greatest gem, which each of us would have, sister and brother, but I got it, wherefore he has been my enemy ever since. Now I will write him a letter and send him the ring, in the hope that that will soften him and turn him in our favour. You shall make ready to go to him, with a splendid suite, and when you come to his palace-door you shall take off your crown and creep bareheaded over the floor up to his throne. Then you shall kiss his right foot and give him the letter and the ring. And if he orders you to stand up, you have succeeded in your task, if not, you have failed.”