girl asked him, "Why art thou
weeping?"--He said to her, "She has ordered me to catch her the golden
hare."--"Oh, oh!" cried the she-dragon's daughter, "the berries are
ripening now; only her father knows how to catch such a hare as that.
Nevertheless, I'll go to a rocky place I know of, and there perchance
we shall be able to catch it." So they went to this rocky place
together, and she said to him, "Stand over that hole. I'll go in and
chase him out of the hole, and do thou catch him as he comes out; but
mind, whatever comes out of the hole, seize it, for it will be the
golden hare."

So she went and began beating up, and all at once out came a snake and
hissed, and he let it go. Then she came out of the hole and said to
him, "What! has nothing come out?"--"Well," said he, "only a snake,
and I was afraid it would bite me, so I let it go."--"What hast thou
done?" said she; "that was the very hare itself. Look now!" said she,
"I'll go in again, and if any one comes out and tells you that the
golden hare is not here, don't believe it, but hold him fast." So she
crept into the hole again and began to beat for game, and out came an
old woman, who said to the youth, "What art thou poking about there
for?"--And he said to her, "For the golden hare."--She said to him,
"It is not here, for this is a snake's hole," and when she had said
this she went away. Presently the girl also came out and said to him,
"What! hast thou not got the hare? Did nothing come out then?"--"No,"
said he, "nothing but an old woman who asked me what I was seeking,
and I told her the golden hare, and she said, 'It is not here,' so I
let her go."--Then the girl replied, "Why didst thou not lay hold of
her? for she was the very golden hare itself, and now thou never wilt
catch it unless I turn myself into a hare and thou take and lay me on
the table, and give me into my mother's, the she-dragon's hands, and
go away, for if she find out all about it she will tear the pair of us
to pieces."

So she changed herself into a hare, and he took and laid her on the
table, and said to the she-dragon, "There's thy hare for thee, and
now let me go away!" She said to him, "Very well--be off!" Then he set
off running, and he ran and ran as hard as he could. Soon after, the
old she-dragon discovered that it was not the golden hare, but her own
daughter, so she set about chasing after them to destroy them both,
for the daughter had made haste in the meantime to join I