quickly and follow her. Believe me, they were willing and glad to follow her this time.
The three travelled briskly and came soon to a bridge, called at that time "The Bridge of Blood." Whoever had killed a person could not cross the bridge. When the three girls came to the bridge the two sisters stopped: they could not go a step further. Smallhead ran across and went back again.
"If I did not know that you killed our mother," said she, "I might know it now, for this is the Bridge of Blood."
She carried one sister over the bridge on her back and then the other. Hardly was this done when the hag was at the bridge.
"Bad luck to you, Smallhead!" said she, "I did not know that it was you that was in it last evening. You have killed my three daughters."
"It wasn't I that killed them, but yourself," said Smallhead.
The old hag could not cross the bridge, so she began to curse, and she put every curse on Smallhead that she could remember. The sisters travelled on till they came to a King's castle. They heard that two servants were needed in the castle.
"Go now," said Smallhead to the two sisters, "and ask for service. Be faithful and do well. You can never go back by the road you came."
The two found employment at the King's castle. Smallhead took lodgings in the house of a blacksmith near by.
"I should be glad to find a place as kitchen-maid in the castle," said Smallhead to the blacksmith's wife.
