h was the youngest?
Suddenly his eyes fell on the hand of the middle one, and there was no
little finger.

'Thou hast aimed well this time too,' said the giant, as the king's son
laid his hand on her shoulder, 'but perhaps we may meet some other way';
and though he pretended to laugh, the bride saw a gleam in his eye which
warned her of danger.

The wedding took place that very night, and the hall was filled with
giants and gentlemen, and they danced till the house shook from top to
bottom. At last everyone grew tired, and the guests went away, and the
king's son and his bride were left alone.

'If we stay here till dawn my father will kill thee,' she whispered,
'but thou art my husband and I will save thee, as I did before,' and
she cut an apple into nine pieces, and put two pieces at the head of
the bed, and two pieces at the foot, and two pieces at the door of the
kitchen, and two at the big door, and one outside the house. And when
this was done, and she heard the giant snoring, she and the king's son
crept out softly and stole across to the stable, where she led out the
blue-grey mare and jumped on its back, and her husband mounted behind
her. Not long after, the giant awoke.

'Are you asleep?' asked he.

'Not yet,' answered the apple at the head of the bed, and the giant
turned over, and soon was snoring as loudly as before. By and bye he
called again.

'Are you asleep?'

'Not yet,' said the apple at the foot of the bed, and the giant was
satisfied. After a while, he called a third time, 'Are you asleep?'

'Not yet,' replied the apple in the kitchen, but when in a few minutes,
he put the question for the fourth time and received an answer from the
apple outside the house door, he guessed what had happened, and ran to
the room to look for himself.

The bed was cold and empty!

'My father's breath is burning my back,' cried the girl, 'put thy hand
into the ear of the mare, and whatever thou findest there, throw it
behind thee.' And in the mare's ear there was a twig of sloe tree, and
as he threw it behind him there sprung up twenty miles of thornwood so
thick that scarce a weasel could go through it. And the giant, who was
striding headlong forwards, got caught in it, and it pulled his hair and
beard.

'This is one of my daughter's tricks,' he said to himself, 'but if I had
my big axe and my wood-knife, I would not be long making a way through
this,' and off he went home and brought back the axe and