‘And when he saw us, he bade us welcome, and married us to his twelve daughters, the eldest to the eldest, and so on to me, whose bride was the youngest of all and also the prettiest. And my brothers were filled with envy, and left me to drown in a brook, but I was saved by a fish who showed me how to get out. Now, you are a judge! Who did well, and who did evil--I or my brothers?’ ‘Is this story true?’ said the father, turning to his sons. ‘It is true, my father,’ answered they. ‘It is even as Halfman has said, and the girl belongs to him.’ Then the judge embraced Halfman and said to him: ‘You have done well, my son. Take your bride, and may you both live long and happily together!’ At the end of the year Halfman’s wife had a son, and not long after she came one day hastily into the room, and found her husband weeping. ‘What is the matter?’ she asked. ‘The matter?’ said he. ‘Yes, why are you weeping?’ ‘Because,’ replied Halfman, ‘the baby is not really ours, but belongs to an ogress.’ ‘Are you mad?’ cried the wife. ‘What do you mean by talking like that?’ ‘I promised,’ said Halfman, ‘when she undertook to kill my brother and to give you to me, that the first son we had should be hers.’ ‘And will she take him from us now?’ said the poor woman. ‘No, not quite yet,’ replied Halfman; ‘when he is bigger.’ ‘And is she to have all our children?’ asked she. ‘No, only this one,’ returned Halfman. Day by day the boy grew bigger, and one day as he was playing in the street with the other children, the ogress came by. ‘Go to your father,’ she said, ‘and repeat this speech to him: “I want my forfeit; when am I to have it?”’ ‘All right,’ replied the child, but when he went home forgot all about it. The next day the ogress came again, and asked the boy what answer the father had given. ‘I forgot all about it,’ said he. ‘Well, put this ring on your finger, and then you won’t forget.’ ‘Very well,’ replied the boy, and went home. The next morning, as he was at breakfast, his mother said to him, ‘Child, where did you get that ring?’ ‘A woman gave it to me yesterday, and she told me, father, to tell you that she wanted her forfeit, and when was she to have it?’ Then his father burst into tears and said, ‘If she comes again you must say to her that your parents bid her take her forfeit at once, and depart.’ At this they both began to weep afresh, and his mother kissed him, and put on his new clothes and said, ‘If the woman bids you to follow her, you must go,’ but the boy did not heed her grief, he was so pleased with his new clothes. And when he went out, he said to his play-fellows, ‘Look how smart I am; I am going away with my aunt to foreign lands.’ At that moment the ogress came up and asked him, ‘Did you give my message to your father and mother?’ ‘Yes, dear aunt, I did.’ ‘And what did they say?’ ‘Take it away at once!’ So she took him.