u are a
hobgoblin or not,' and on he went with his ox.

Once more the youth did just as he had done twice already; jumped down
from the tree, ran by a short cut through the wood, and again hanged
himself in the very middle of the road before him.

But when the man once more saw this he said to himself, 'What a bad
business this is! Can they all have been so heavy-hearted that they
have all three hanged themselves? No, I can't believe that it is
anything but witchcraft! But I will know the truth,' he said; 'if the
two others are still hanging there it is true but if they are not it's
nothing else but witchcraft.'

So he tied up his ox and ran back to see if they really were hanging
there. While he was going, and looking up at every tree as he went,
the youth leapt down and took his ox and went off with it. Any one may
easily imagine what a fury the man fell into when he came back and saw
that his ox was gone. He wept and he raged, but at last he took comfort
and told himself that the best thing to do was to go home and take the
third ox, without letting his wife know anything about it, and then try
to sell it so well that he got a good sum of money for it. So he went
home and took the third ox, and drove it off without his wife knowing
anything about it. But the robbers knew all about it, and they told the
youth that if he could steal this as he had stolen the two others, he
should be master of the whole troop. So the youth set out and went to
the wood, and when the man was coming along with the ox he began to
bellow loudly, just like a great ox somewhere inside the wood. When the
man heard that he was right glad, for he fancied he recognised the voice
of his big bullock, and thought that now he should find both of them
again. So he tied up the third, and ran away off the road to look for
them in the wood. In the meantime the youth went away with the third ox.
When the man returned and found that he had lost that too, he fell into
such a rage that there was no bounds to it. He wept and lamented, and
for many days he did not dare to go home again, for he was afraid that
the old woman would slay him outright. The robbers, also, were not very
well pleased at this, for they were forced to own that the youth was at
the head of them all. So one day they made up their minds to set to work
to do something which it was not in his power to accomplish, and they
all took to the road together, and left him at home alone. When they