ding him. About mid-day who should come but Auburn
Mary.

"You are exhausting yourself, king's son," says she.

"I am," said he.

"There fell but these two blackbirds, and both of one colour."

"Come over and lay down your weariness on this pretty hillock," says
the giant's daughter.

"It's I am willing," said he.

He thought she would aid him this time, too, and he sat down near her,
and he was not long there till he fell asleep.

When he awoke, Auburn Mary was gone. He thought he would go back to the
house, and he sees the byre thatched with feathers. When the giant came
home, he said:

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

"I thatched it," says he.

"Somebody thatched it," says the giant.

"You did not thatch it," says the king's son.

"Yes, yes!" says the giant. "Now," says the giant, "there is a fir tree
beside that loch down there, and there is a magpie's nest in its top.
The eggs thou wilt find in the nest. I must have them for my first
meal. Not one must be burst or broken, and there are five in the nest."

Early in the morning the king's son went where the tree was, and that
tree was not hard to hit upon. Its match was not in the whole wood.
From the foot to the first branch was five hundred feet. The king's son
was going all round the tree. She came who was always bringing help to
him.

"You are losing the skin of your hands and feet."

"Ach! I am," says he. "I am no sooner up than down."

"This is no time for stopping," says the giant's daughter. "Now you
must kill me, strip the flesh from my bones, take all those bones
apart, and use them as steps for climbing the tree. When you are
climbing the tree, they will stick to the glass as if they had grown
out of it; but when you are coming down, and have put your foot on each
one, they will drop into your hand when you touch them. Be sure and
stand on each bone, leave none untouched; if you do, it will stay
behind. Put all my flesh into this clean cloth by the side of the
spring at the roots of the tree. When you come to the earth, arrange my
bones together, put the flesh over them, sprinkle it with water from
the spring, and I shall be alive before you. But don't forget a bone of
me on the tree."

"How could I kill you," asked the king's son, "after what you have done
for me?"

"If you won't obey, you and I are done for," said Auburn Mary. "You
must climb the tree, or we are lost; and to climb the tree you must do
as I say." The k