Now when the sun was at the edge of noon, just balancing to fall, there
came a boy, a little wretched, elfish-looking child, as sad and sickly
as a boy could be, who asked the man for food. He answered him, "Poor
little fellow! there, the pot is full of venison, so go and eat your
fill."
He ate, indeed, the dinner for the three. When he had done he did not
leave a scrap; then walked into the stony mountain-side, as any man
might walk into the fog, and in a second he was seen no more.
Now when the two returned and heard the tale they were right angry,
being hungry men. The man; who rolled the stone stayed next in turn,
but when the I little fellow came to him he seemed so famished and he
shed such tears that this one also gave him leave to eat. Then, in a
single swallow, as it seemed, he bolted all the food, and yelled aloud
with an insulting laugh. The man, enraged, grappled him by the throat,
but the strange boy flung him away as one would throw a not, and
vanished in the mountain as before.
On the third day the mighty man himself remained at home, and soon the
starveling child came and began to beg, with tears, for food. "Eat,"
said the chief, "as other people eat, and no more tricks, or I will
deal with you." But as it was with him the day before, so it went now;
he swallowed all the meat with the same jeering yell Then the strong
man closed with the boy.
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