At the end of a while he called again.
"Not yet," said the apple that was at the foot of the bed.
A while after this he called again: "Are your asleep?"
"Not yet," said the apple at the kitchen door.
The giant called again.
The apple that was at the big door answered.
"You are now going far from me," says the giant.
"Not yet," says the apple that was outside the house.
"You are flying," says the giant. The giant jumped on his feet, and to the bed he went, but it was cold—empty.
"My own daughter's tricks are trying me," said the giant. "Here's after them," says he.
At the mouth of day, the giant's daughter said that her father's breath was burning her back.
"Put your hand, quick," said she, "in the ear of the grey filly, and whatever you find in it, throw it behind us."
"There is a twig of sloe tree," said he.
"Throw it behind us," said she.
No sooner did he that, than there were twenty miles of blackthorn wood, so thick that scarce a weasel could go through it.
The giant came headlong, and there he is fleecing his head and neck in the thorns.
"My own daughter's tricks are here as before," said the giant; "but if I had my own big axe and wood knife here, I would not be long making a way through this."
He went home for the big axe and the wood knife, and sure he was not long on his journey, and he was the boy behind the big axe. He was not long making a way through the blackthorn.
