“Well, my young son, how are you this morning?”

“Oh, I am very well, thank you, but I didn’t have much rest.”

“Well, never mind that; you have got on very well so far, but you have a great deal to go through before you can have the golden apples to go to your father.  You’d better come and have some breakfast before you start on your way to my other brother’s house.  You will have to leave your own horse here with me until you come back again, and tell me everything about how you get on.”

After that out came a fresh horse for the young prince, and the old man gave him a ball of yarn, and he flung it between the horse’s two ears.

Off he went as fast as the wind, which the wind behind could not catch the wind before, until he came to the second oldest brother’s house.  When he rode up to the door he had the same salute as from the first old man, but this one was even uglier than the first one.  He had long grey hair, and his teeth were curling out of his mouth, and his finger- and toe-nails had not been cut for many thousand years.  He put the horse into a much better stable, and called Jack in, and gave him plenty to eat and drink, and they had a bit of a chat before they went to bed.

“Well, my young son,” said the old man, “I suppose you are one of the king’s children come to look for the golden apples to bring him back to health.”

“Yes, I am the youngest of the three brothers, and I should like to get them to go back with.”

“Well, don’t mind, my young son.  Before you go to bed to-night I will send to my eldest brother, and will tell him what you want, and he won’t have much trouble in sending you on to the place where you must get the apples.  But mind not to stir to-night no matter how you get bitten and stung, or else you will work great mischief to yourself.”

The young man went to bed and bore all, as he did the first night, and got up the next morning well and hearty.  After a good breakfast out comes a fresh horse, and a ball of yarn to throw between his ears.  The old man told him to jump up quick, and said that he had made it all right with his eldest brother, not to delay for anything whatever, “For,” said he, “you have a good deal to go through with in a very short and quick time.”

He flung the ball, and off he goes as quick as lightning, and comes to the eldest brother’s house.  The old man receives him very kindly and told him he long wished to see him, and that he would go through his work like a man and come back safe and sound.  “To-night,” said he, “I will give you rest; there shall nothing come to disturb you, so that you may not feel sleepy for to-morrow.  And you must mind to get up middling early, for you’ve got to go and come all in the same day; there will be no place for you to rest within thousands of miles of that place; and if there was, you would stand in great danger never to come from there in your own form.  Now, my young prince, mind what I tell you.