When he awoke next morning, his first thought was to do his best to ingratiate himself with the maiden. He found the industrious girl already at work, and helped her to draw water from the well and carry it into the house, chopped wood, kept up the fire under the pots, and helped her in all her other work. In the afternoon he went out to make himself better acquainted with his new abode, and was much surprised that he could find no trace of the old grandmother. He saw a white mare in the stable, and a black cow with a white-headed calf in the enclosure, and in other locked outhouses he thought he heard ducks, geese, fowls, &c. Breakfast and dinner were just as good as last night's supper, and he would have been very well content with his position, but that it was so very hard to hold his tongue with the maiden opposite him. On the evening of the second day he went to the master to receive his instructions for next day's work. The old man said, "I'll give you an easy job for to-morrow. Take the scythe, and mow as much grass as the white mare needs for her day's pro [Pg 165] vender, and clean out the stable. But if I should come and find the manger empty or any litter on the floor, it will go badly enough with you. Take good heed!" The prince was well pleased, for he thought, "I shall soon be able to manage this piece of work, for although I have never handled either plough or scythe before, I have often seen how easily the country-people manage these tools, and I am quite strong enough." But when he was about to go to bed, the maiden crept in gently, and asked in a low voice, "What work has he given you?" "I've an easy task for to-morrow," answered the prince. "I have only to mow grass for the white mare, and to clean out the stable; that's all." "O poor fellow!" sighed the maiden, "how can you ever accomplish it? The white mare is the master's grandmother, and she is an insatiable creature, for whom twenty mowers could hardly provide the daily fodder, and another twenty would have to work from morning till night to clear the litter from the stable. How will you be able to manage both tasks alone? Take my advice, and follow it exactly. When you have thrown a few loads of grass to the [Pg 166] mare, you must plait a strong rope of willow-twigs in her sight. She will ask you what this is for, and you must answer, 'To bind you up so tightly that you will not feel disposed to eat more than I give you, or to litter the stable after I have cleared it.'" As soon as the girl had finished speaking, she slid out of the room as gently as she had come, without giving the youth time to thank her. He repeated her instructions to himself several times, for fear of forgetting anything, and