g, and without wasting words the little
fellow leapt on the shoulders of the bogatir, and set to beating him
and thumping him, first on one side of his head and then on the other.
He gave him such a banging that he very nearly made an end of him
altogether. Then the little fellow ate up the whole of the sheep in a
few mouthfuls, and went off angrily into the forest, with his long
white beard flowing behind him.

Midnight tied up his head with a handkerchief, and lay down under the
bench, groaning and groaning, unable to put his head to the ground, or
even to lay it in the crook of his arm, it was so bruised by the
beating given it by the little old man.

In the evening the brothers rode back, and found Midnight groaning
under the bench, with his head bound up in a handkerchief.

Evening looked at him and said nothing. Perhaps he was thinking of his
own bruised head, which was still tied up in a dishcloth.

"What's the matter with you?" says Sunrise.

"There never was such another stove as this," says Midnight. "I'd no
sooner lit it than it seemed as if the whole hut were on fire. My
head nearly burst. It's aching now; and as for your dinner, why, I've
not been able to put a hand to anything all day."

Evening chuckled to himself, but Sunrise only said, "That's bad,
brother; but you shall go hunting to-morrow, and I'll stay at home,
and see what I can do with the stove."

And so on the third day the two elder brothers went hunting--Midnight
on his black horse, and Evening on his horse of dusky brown. Sunrise
stood in the doorway of the hut, and saw them disappear under the
green trees. The sun shone on his golden curls, and his blue eyes were
like the sky itself. There, never was such another bogatir as he.

He went into the hut and lit the stove. Then he went out into the
yard, chose the best sheep he could find, killed it, skinned it,
cleaned it, cut it up, and set it on the stove. He made everything
ready, and then lay down on the bench.

Before he had lain there very long he heard a stumping, a thumping, a
knocking, a rattling, a grumbling, a rumbling. Sunrise leaped up from
the bench and looked out through the window of the hut. There in the
yard was the little old man, one yard high, with a beard seven yards
long. He was carrying a whole haystack on his head and a great tub of
water in his arms. He came into the middle of the yard, and set down
his tub to water all the beasts. He set down the haystack and