"Let me see your hands," he said, "and I will know."
She spread her clean hand open over the stained one but he pulled out the other hand from below, and when he saw the stains, "Oho!" he said, "so that is the way of it."
And he took his axe and chopped off her head, and then he threw her into the chamber beside her sister.
And next morning the youngest sister, who was knitting beside her mother, saw the grey horse back again among the kail. Both her sisters had disappeared, and neither she nor her mother had closed an eye all night wondering what had happened to them. But she said to her mother in a brave voice: "Well, mother, I am going out to see whether I cannot find out where my sisters have gone, and if necessary I, too, will go with the grey horse and look for them."
That's you for a brave lassie," said the widow but mind you come back to me."
So out went the youngest daughter, and over to the grey horse.
"Where are my sisters?" she said, and she stuck her knitting needle in his side. It stuck to him and her hand stuck to the knitting needle, and off they went to the green hillock. Again he stamped his hoofs and said: "Open, open, green hillock, and let in the grey horse that is son of a King! Open, open, green hillock, and let in the widow's youngest daughter!"
And everything happened to her as it had to her sisters, whom she saw next day, dead, in the forbidden chamber. With the shock of it she fell down, and her hands also became stained with blood; and although she tried and tried to wash them, the stains would not disappear.
But when the little cat came to her with its offer to lick her hands clean in return for a drop of milk, she did not repulse it as her sisters had done. Her answer was: "Look you---creature that you are---if you will do what you are promising and lick my hands clean, you are worth a good drink of milk. So come and take it." |
