The lad was willing enough, so he sat down in the cleft of the rock beside the old hag, and laid his head on her knees, and she combed his hair all day while he lay there and gave himself up to idleness.
When evening was drawing near, the youth wanted to go. ‘I may just as well go straight home again,’ said he, ‘for it is no use to go to the King’s palace.’
‘Wait till it is dusk,’ said the old hag, ‘and then the King’s foals will pass by this place again, and you can run home with them; no one will ever know that you have been lying here all day instead of watching the foals.’
So when they came she gave the lad a bottle of water and a bit of moss, and told him to show these to the King and say that this was what his seven foals ate and drank.
‘Hast thou watched faithfully and well the whole day long?’ said the King, when the lad came into his presence in the evening.
‘Yes, that I have!’ said the youth.
‘Then you are able to tell me what it is that my seven foals eat and drink,’ said the King.
So the youth produced the bottle of water and the bit of moss which he had got from the old woman, saying:
‘Here you see their meat, and here you see their drink.’
