By-and-by they reached a town, where a King ruled whose only daughter was so solemn that nothing and nobody could make her laugh. So the King had proclaimed that whoever could make her laugh should marry her.
When Simpleton heard this he took his Goose, with all his following, before her, and when she saw these seven people running, one behind another, she burst into fits of laughter, and seemed as if she could never stop.
Thereupon Simpleton asked her in marriage. But the King did not like him for a son-in-law, and he made all sorts of conditions. First, he said Simpleton must bring him a man who could drink up a cellar full of wine.
Then Simpleton at once thought of the little grey Man who might be able to help him, and he went out to the forest to look for him. On the very spot where the tree that he had cut down had stood, he saw a man sitting with a very sad face. Simpleton asked him what was the matter, and he answered—
‘I am so thirsty, and I can’t quench my thirst. I hate cold water, and I have already emptied a cask of wine; but what is a drop like that on a burning stone?’
‘Well, there I can help you,’ said Simpleton. ‘Come with me, and you shall soon have enough to drink and to spare.’
He led him to the King’s cellar, and the Man set to upon the great casks, and he drank and drank till his sides ached, and by the end of the day the cellar was empty.
Then again Simpleton demanded his bride. But the King was annoyed that a wretched fellow called ‘Simpleton’ should have his daughter, and he made new conditions. He was now to find a man who could eat up a mountain of bread.
Simpleton did not reflect long, but went straight to the forest, and there in the self-same place sat a man tightening a strap round his body, and making a very miserable face. He said: ‘I have eaten up a whole ovenful of rolls, but what is the good of that when any one is as hungry as I am. I am never satisfied. I have to tighten my belt every day if I am not to die of hunger.’
