, and when he was outside
the gates he told the boots to take him to the place where his youngest
sister lived. The boots carried him to a dark cavern, with steps of iron
leading up to it. Inside she sat, weeping and sobbing, and as she had
done nothing else the whole time she had been there, the poor girl had
grown very thin. When she saw a man standing before her, she sprang to
her feet and exclaimed, 'Oh, whoever you are, save me and take me from
this horrible place!' Then he told her who he was, and how he had seen
her sisters, whose happiness was spoilt by the spell under which both
their husbands lay, and she, in turn, related her story. She had been
carried off in the water-meadow by a horrible monster, who wanted to
make her marry him by force, and had kept her a prisoner all these years
because she would not submit to his will. Every day he came to beg her
to consent to his wishes, and to remind her that there was no hope of
her being set free, as he was the most constant man in the world, and
besides that he could never die. At these words the youth remembered his
two enchanted brothers-in-law, and he advised his sister to promise to
marry the old man, if he would tell her why he could never die. Suddenly
everything began to tremble, as if it was shaken by a whirlwind, and
the old man entered, and flinging himself at the feet of the girl, he
said: 'Are you still determined never to marry me? If so you will have
to sit there weeping till the end of the world, for I shall always be
faithful to my wish to marry you!' 'Well, I will marry you,' she said,
'if you will tell me why it is that you can never die.'

Then the old man burst into peals of laughter. 'Ah, ah, ah! You are
thinking how you would be able to kill me? Well, to do that, you would
have to find an iron casket which lies at the bottom of the sea, and has
a white dove inside, and then you would have to find the egg which the
dove laid, and bring it here, and dash it against my head.' And he
laughed again in his certainty that no one had ever got down to the
bottom of the sea, and that if they did, they would never find the
casket, or be able to open it. When he could speak once more, he said,
'Now you will be obliged to marry me, as you know my secret.' But she
begged so hard that the wedding might be put off for three days, that he
consented, and went away rejoicing at his victory. When he had
disappeared, the brother took off the cap which had kept hi