t. He had got into a fog, he said, and could not find land again.
What he did not tell, however, was where he had been all the time; that
only came out six years later, when people got to know that he had been
caught by a mermaid out on the deep sea, and had been her guest during
the three days that he was missing. From that time forth he went out no
more to fish; nor, indeed, did he require to do so, for whenever he went
down to the shore it never failed that some wreckage was washed up, and
in it all kinds of valuable things. In those days everyone took what
they found and got leave to keep it, so that the smith grew more
prosperous day by day.

When seven years had passed since the smith went out to sea, it happened
one morning, as he stood in the smithy, mending a plough, that a
handsome young lad came in to him and said, 'Good-day, father; my mother
the mermaid sends her greetings, and says that she has had me for six
years now, and you can keep me for as long.'

He was a strange enough boy to be six years old, for he looked as if he
were eighteen, and was even bigger and stronger than lads commonly are
at that age.

'Will you have a bite of bread?' said the smith.

'Oh, yes,' said Hans, for that was his name.

The smith then told his wife to cut a piece of bread for him. She did
so, and the boy swallowed it at one mouthful and went out again to the
smithy to his father.

'Have you got all you can eat?' said the smith.

'No,' said Hans, 'that was just a little bit.'

The smith went into the house and took a whole loaf, which he cut into
two slices and put butter and cheese between them, and this he gave to
Hans. In a while the boy came out to the smithy again.

'Well, have you got as much as you can eat?' said the smith.

'No, not nearly,' said Hans; 'I must try to find a better place than
this, for I can see that I shall never get my fill here.'

Hans wished to set off at once, as soon as his father would make a staff
for him of such a kind as he wanted.

'It must be of iron,' said he, 'and one that can hold out.'

The smith brought him an iron rod as thick as an ordinary staff, but
Hans took it and twisted it round his finger, so that wouldn't do. Then
the smith came dragging one as thick as a waggon-pole, but Hans bent it
over his knee and broke it like a straw. The smith then had to collect
all the iron he had, and Hans held it while his father forged for him a
staff, which was heavier than the a