their eyes could see. Then the youngest son gathered together the ploughshares and bade a blacksmith make a lance of them, but a lance of such a kind as would fly into the air and come back again to the hand that hurled it without breaking its iron point. The smith made the lance, and the youth hurled it. Up into the air flew the lance, but when it came down again on to the tip of his little finger it broke to pieces. Then the youth shook himself still more violently in the ashes, and again the labourers in the field fled away before the terrible tempest which immediately arose, and the youth gathered together a still greater multitude of ploughshares and took them to the smith. The smith made a second lance, and that also flew up into the air and broke to pieces when it came down again. Then the youth shook himself in the ashes a third time, and such a hurricane arose that there was scarce a ploughshare in the whole country-side that was not carried away. It was only with great difficulty that the smith could make the third lance, but when that came down on the youth's finger it did not break in pieces like the others. "This will do pretty well," said the youth, and catching up the lance he went forth into the wide world.
He went on and on and on till he also came to the oven and the cauldron. The men who guarded the oven and the cauldron stopped him and asked him his
