lad hadn't done anything of the kind.

"Well, well; I'll soon see that," said the man; and when he saw the
lad had been in them after all, he said:

"Ah! now I'll spare you no longer; now you must lose your life."

But the lad begged and prayed for himself again, and so this time too
he got off with stripes; though he got as many as his skin would
carry. But when he got sound and well again, he led just as easy a
life as ever, and he and the man were just as good friends.

So a while after the man was to take another journey, and now he said
he should be away three weeks, and he forbade the lad anew to go into
the third room, for if he went in there he might just make up his mind
at once to lose his life. Then after fourteen days the lad couldn't
bear it, but crept into the room, but he saw nothing at all in there
but a trap door on the floor; and when he lifted it up and looked
down, there stood a great copper cauldron which bubbled up and boiled
away down there; but he saw no fire under it.

"Well, I should just like to know if it's hot," thought the lad, and
struck his finger down into the broth, and when he pulled it out
again, lo! it was gilded all over. So the lad scraped and scrubbed it,
but the gilding wouldn't go off, so he bound a piece of rag round it;
and when the man came back, and asked what was the matter with his
finger, the lad said he'd given it such a bad cut. But the man tore
off the rag, and then he soon saw what was the matter with the finger.
First he wanted to kill the lad outright, but when he wept, and
begged, he only gave him such a thrashing that he had to keep his bed
three days. After that the man took down a pot from the wall, and
rubbed him over with some stuff out of it, and so the lad was as
sound and fresh as ever.

So after a while the man started off again, and this time he was to be
away a month. But before he went, he said to the lad, if he went into
the fourth room he might give up all hope of saving his life.

Well, the lad stood out for two or three weeks, but then he couldn't
hold out any longer; he must and would go into that room, and so in he
stole. There stood a great black horse tied up in a stall by himself,
with a manger of red-hot coals at his head and a truss of hay at his
tail. Then the lad thought this all wrong, so he changed them about,
and put the hay at his head. Then said the _Horse_:

"Since you are so good at heart as to let me have some food, I'll set