was
not a good place for him to be in, as it belonged to the Red Ettin, who
was a very terrible monster with three heads, who spared no living man
it could get hold of. The young man would have gone away, but he was
afraid of the two-headed four-horned beasts outside; so he beseeched the
old woman to hide him as best she could, and not tell the Ettin he was
there. He thought, if he could put over the night, he might get away in
the morning, without meeting with the dreadful, terrible, horrible
beasts, and so escape.

But he had not been long in his hiding-hole, before the awful Ettin came
in; and no sooner was he in, than he was heard crying:

"Snouk but! and snouk ben!
I find the smell of an earthly man;
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall kitchen my bread."

Well, the monster began to search about, and he soon found the poor
young man, and pulled him from his hiding-place. And when he had got him
out, he told him that if he could answer him three questions his life
should be spared.

So the first head asked: "A thing without an end; what's that?"

But the young man knew not.

Then the second head said: "The smaller the more dangerous; what's
that?"

But the young man knew not.

And then the third head asked: "The dead carrying the living? riddle me
that."

But the young man knew not.

So the lad not being able to answer one of these questions, the Red
Ettin took a mallet from behind the door, knocked him on the head, and
turned him into a pillar of stone.

Now on the morning after this happened the younger brother took out the
knife to look at it, and he was grieved to find it all brown with rust.
So he told his mother that the time was now come for him to go away upon
his travels also. At first she refused to let him go; but at last she
requested him to take the can to the well for water, that she might make
a cake for him. So he went, but as he was bringing home the water, a
raven over his head cried to him to look, and he would see that the
water was running out. Now being a young man of sense, and seeing the
water running out, he took some clay and patched up the holes, so that
he brought home enough water to bake a large cake. And when his mother
put it to him to take the half cake with her blessing, he took it
instead of having the whole with her malison.

So he went away on his journey with his mother's blessing. Now after he
had travelled a far way, he met with