‘Alas! my love,’ was her answer, ‘over there are the garnet mountains, where the precious stones are found. I long for them so much that I grow sad whenever I think of them. But who could ever get them? The birds which fly, perhaps; no mortal could ever reach them.’
‘If that is all your trouble,’ said the Huntsman, ‘I can soon lift that load from your heart.’
Then he drew her under his cloak, and in a moment they were both sitting on the mountain. The precious stones were glittering around them; their hearts rejoiced at the sight of them, and they soon gathered together some of the finest and largest.
Now the Witch had so managed that the Huntsman began to feel his eyes grow very heavy.
So he said to the Maiden: ‘We will sit down to rest a while, I am so tired I can hardly stand.’
So they sat down, and he laid his head on her lap and was soon fast asleep.
As soon as he was asleep, the Maiden slipped the cloak from his shoulders and put it on her own, loaded herself with the precious garnets, and wished herself at home.
When the Huntsman had had his sleep out, he woke up and saw that his beloved had betrayed him, and left him alone on the wild mountain.
‘Oh, what treachery there is in the world!’ he exclaimed, as he sat down in grief, and did not know what to do.
Now the mountain belonged to some wild and savage Giants who lived on it, and before long he saw three of them striding along.
He quickly lay down again and pretended to be fast asleep.
The first one, as he came along, stumbled against him, and said: ‘What kind of earthworm is this?’
The second said: ‘Tread on him and kill him.’
But the third said: ‘It isn’t worth the trouble. Let him alone,—he can’t live here; and when he climbs higher up the mountain, the clouds will roll down and carry him off.’
