the wood-knife.

It took him but a short time to cut a road through the blackthorn, and
then he laid the axe and the knife under a tree.

'I will leave them there till I return,' he murmured to himself, but a
hoodie crow, which was sitting on a branch above, heard him.

'If thou leavest them,' said the hoodie, 'we will steal them.'

'You will,' answered the giant, 'and I must take them home.' So he took
them home, and started afresh on his journey.

'My father's breath is burning my back,' cried the girl at midday. 'Put
thy finger in the mare's ear and throw behind thee whatever thou findest
in it,' and the king's son found a splinter of grey stone, and threw it
behind him, and in a twinkling twenty miles of solid rock lay between
them and the giant.

'My daughter's tricks are the hardest things that ever met me,' said
the giant, 'but if I had my lever and my crowbar, I would not be long in
making my way through this rock also,' but as he had got them, he had to
go home and fetch them. Then it took him but a short time to hew his way
through the rock.

'I will leave the tools here,' he murmured aloud when he had finished.

'If thou leavest them, we will steal them,' said a hoodie who was
perched on a stone above him, and the giant answered:

'Steal them if thou wilt; there is no time to go back.'

'My father's breath is burning my back,' cried the girl; 'look in the
mare's ear, king's son, or we are lost,' and he looked, and found a tiny
bladder full of water, which he threw behind him, and it became a
great lock. And the giant, who was striding on so fast, could not stop
himself, and he walked right into the middle and was drowned.

The blue-grey mare galloped on like the wind, and the next day the
king's son came in sight of his father's house.

'Get down and go in,' said the bride, 'and tell them that thou hast
married me. But take heed that neither man nor beast kiss thee, for then
thou wilt cease to remember me at all.'

'I will do thy bidding,' answered he, and left her at the gate. All who
met him bade him welcome, and he charged his father and mother not to
kiss him, but as he greeted them his old greyhound leapt on his neck,
and kissed him on the mouth. And after that he did not remember the
giant's daughter.

All that day she sat on a well which was near the gate, waiting,
waiting, but the king's son never came. In the darkness she climbed up
into an oak tree that shadowed the well, and there s