The following morning the ogress told the young man that he must take
all the feathers out of her pillows and spread them to dry in the sun.
But if one feather was missing when she came back at night his head
should pay for it.”
The young man fetched the pillows, and shook out all the feathers, and
oh! what quantities of them there were! He was thinking to himself, as
he spread them out carefully, how lucky it was that the sun was so
bright and that there was no wind, when suddenly a breeze sprang up,
and in a moment the feathers were dancing high in the air. At first the
youth tried to collect them again, but he soon found that it was no
use, and he cried in despair: “Tritill, Litill, and all my birds, come
and help me!”
He had hardly said the words when there they all were; and when the
birds had brought all the feathers back again, Tritill, and Litill, and
he, put them away in the pillows, as the ogress had bidden him. But one
little feather they kept out, and told the young man that if the ogress
missed it he was to thrust it up her nose. Then they all vanished,
Tritill, Litill, and the birds.
Directly the ogress returned home she flung herself with all her weight
on the bed, and the whole cave quivered under her. The pillows were
soft and full instead of being empty, which surprised her, but that did
not content her. She got up, shook out the pillow-cases one by one, and
began to count the feathers that were in each. “If one is missing I
will have your head,” said she, and at that the young man drew the
feather from his pocket and thrust it up her nose, crying “If you want
your feather, here it is.”
“You did not sort those feathers alone,” answered the ogress calmly;
“however, this time I will let that pass.”
That night the young man slept soundly in his corner, and in the
morning the ogress told him that his work that day would be to slay one
of her great oxen, to cook its heart, and to make drinking cups of its
horns, before she returned home “There are fifty oxen,” added she, “and
you must guess which of the herd I want killed. If you guess right,
to-morrow you shall be free to go where you will, and you shall choose
besides three things as a reward for your service. But if you slay the
wrong ox your head shall pay for it.”
Left alone, the young man stood thinking for a little. Then he called:
“Tritill, Litill, come to my help!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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