But Jofrid could no longer be mistaken.  It was the old King Atle himself sitting there.  She stood in the doorway, shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked right into his stony face.  He had very small, oblique eyes under a dome-like brow, a broad nose and a long beard.  And he was alive, that man of stone.  He smiled and winked at her.  She was afraid, and what terrified her most of all were his thick, muscular arms and hairy hands.  The longer she looked at him the broader grew his smile, and at last he lifted one of his mighty arms to beckon her to him.  Then Jofrid took flight towards home.

But when Toenne came home and saw the housc adorned with starry weavings, he found courage to send a friend to Jofrid’s father.  The latter asked Jofrid what she thought about it and she gave her consent.  She was well pleased with the way it had turned out, even if she had been half forced to give her hand.  She could not say no to the man, to whose house she had already carried her dower.  Still she looked first to see that old King Atle had again become a pile of stones.

***

Toenne and Jofrid lived happily for many years.  They earned a good reputation.  “They are good,” people said.  “See how they stand by one another, see how they work together, see how one cannot live apart from the other!”

Toenne grew stronger, more enduring and less heavy-witted every day.  Jofrid seemed to have made a whole man of him.  Almost always he let her rule, but he also understood how to carry out his own will with tenacious obstinacy.

Jests and merriment followed Jofrid wherever she went.  Her clothes became more vivid the older she grew.  Her whole face was bright red.  But in Toenne’s eyes she was beautiful.

They were not so poor as many others of their class.  They ate butter with their porridge and mixed neither bran nor bark in their bread.  Myrtle ale foamed in their tankards.  Their flocks of sheep and goats increased so quickly that they could allow themselves meat.

Toenne once worked for a peasant in the valley.  The latter, who saw how he and his wife worked together with great gaiety, thought like many another:  “See, these are good people.”

The peasant had lately lost his wife, and she had left behind her a child six months old.  He asked Toenne and Jofrid to take his son as a foster-child.

“The child is very dear to me,” he said, “therefore I give it to you, for you are good people.”

They had no children of their own, so that it seemed very fitting for them to take it.  They accepted it too without hesitation.  They thought it would be to their advantage to bring up a peasant’s child, besides which they expected to be cheered in their old age by their foster-son.