g, and she said, "To-morrow you will get the choice of my two
sisters to marry; but say that you will not take either, but me. My
father wants me to marry the son of the king of the Green City, but I
don't like him." On the morrow the giant took out his three daughters,
and he said:

"Now, son of the king of Tethertown, thou hast not lost by living with
me so long. Thou wilt get to wife one of the two eldest of my
daughters, and with her leave to go home with her the day after the
wedding."

"If you will give me this pretty little one," says the king's son, "I
will take you at your word."

The giant's wrath kindled, and he said: "Before thou gett'st her thou
must do the three things that I ask thee to do."

"Say on," says the king's son.

The giant took him to the byre.

"Now," says the giant, "a hundred cattle are stabled here, and it has
not been cleansed for seven years. I am going from home to-day, and if
this byre is not cleaned before night comes, so clean that a golden
apple will run from end to end of it, not only thou shalt not get my
daughter, but 'tis only a drink of thy fresh, goodly, beautiful blood
that will quench my thirst this night."

He begins cleaning the byre, but he might just as well to keep baling
the great ocean. After midday when sweat was blinding him, the giant's
youngest daughter came where he was, and she said to him:

"You are being punished, king's son."

"I am that," says the king's son.

"Come over," says Auburn Mary, "and lay down your weariness."

"I will do that," says he, "there is but death awaiting me, at any
rate." He sat down near her. He was so tired that he fell asleep beside
her. When he awoke, the giant's daughter was not to be seen, but the
byre was so well cleaned that a golden apple would run from end to end
of it and raise no stain. In comes the giant, and he said:

"Hast thou cleaned the byre, king's son?"

"I have cleaned it," says he.

"Somebody cleaned it," says the giant.

"You did not clean it, at all events," said the king's son.

"Well, well!" says the giant, "since thou wert so active to-day, thou
wilt get to this time to-morrow to thatch this byre with birds' down,
from birds with no two feathers of one colour."

The king's son was on foot before the sun; he caught up his bow and his
quiver of arrows to kill the birds. He took to the moors, but if he
did, the birds were not so easy to take. He was running after them till
the sweat was blin