within a year, on pain of death.  The first is that you bring me a tent which will hold one hundred men but can yet be hidden in the closed hand;[FN#421] the second, that you shall bring me water that cures all ailments;[FN#422] and the third, that you shall bring me hither a man who has not his like in the whole world.”  “Show me whither I shall go to obtain these things,” said the young king.  “That you must find out for yourself,” replied the other.

Then the old king turned his back upon his son and went off.  Away went also the young king, no farewells being said, and nothing is told of his travels till he came home to his realm.  He was then very sad and heavy-minded, and the queen seeing this asked him earnestly what had befallen him and what caused the gloom on his mind.  He declared that this did not regard her.  The queen answered, “I know that tasks must have been set you which it will not prove easy to perform.  But what will it avail you to sit sullen and sad on account of such things?  Behave as a man, and try if these tasks may not indeed be accomplished.”

Now the king thought it best tell the queen all that had happened and how matters stood.  “All this,” said the queen, “is the rede of your stepmother, and it would be well indeed if she could do you no more harm by it than she has already tried to do.  She has chosen such difficulties she thought you would not easily get over, but I can do something here.  The tent is in my possession, so there is that difficulty over.  The water you have to get is a short way hence but very hard of approach.  It is in a well and the well is in a cave hellishly dark.  The well is watched by seven lions and three serpents, and from these monsters nobody has ever returned alive; and the nature of the water is that it has no healing power whatever unless it be drawn when all these monsters are awake.  Now I will risk the undertaking of drawing the water.”  So the queen made herself ready to go to the cave, taking with her seven oxen and three pigs.  When she came before the cave she ordered the oxen to be killed and thrown before the lions and the pigs before the serpents.  And while these monsters tore and devoured the carcases the queen stepped down into the well and drew as much water as she wanted.  And she left the cave just in time as the beasts finished devouring their bait.  After this the queen went home to the palace having thus got over the second trial.

Then she came to her husband and said, “Now two of the tasks are done, but the third and indeed the hardest, of them is left.  Moreover, this is one you must perform yourself, but I can give you some hints as to whither to go for it.  I have got a half brother who rules over an island not far from hence.  He is three feet high, and has one eye in the middle of his forehead.  He has a beard thirty ells long, stiff and hard as a hog’s bristles.  He has a dog’s snout and cat’s ears, and I should scarcely fancy he has his like in the whole