ff, but you shall have
my horse and carriage, and then you will get there by nightfall.'

So the man set off and he got there by nightfall. The old woman was
standing raking the fire, and she was doing it with her nose, so long it
was.

'Good-evening, mother,' said the man.

'Good-evening to you,' said the old woman. 'No one has called me mother
this hundred years.'

'Can I lodge here to-night?' said the man.

'No,' said the old woman. But the man pulled out his roll of tobacco
again, and filled his pipe with some of it, and gave the old woman
enough snuff to cover the back of her hand. Then she was so delighted
that she began to dance, and the man got leave to stay in her house. It
was not long before he asked about Farmer Weatherbeard. She knew nothing
at all about him, she said, but she governed all the birds; and she
gathered them together with her whistle. When she questioned them all,
the eagle was not there, but it came soon afterwards, and when asked,
it said that it had just come from Farmer Weatherbeard's. Then the old
woman said that it was to guide the man to him. But the eagle would have
something to eat first, and then it wanted to wait until the next day,
for it was so tired with the long journey that it was scarcely able to
rise from the earth.

When the eagle had had plenty of food and rest, the old woman plucked
a feather out of its tail, and set the man in the feather's place,
and then the bird flew away with him, but they did not get to Farmer
Weatherbeard's before midnight.

When they got there the Eagle said: 'There are a great many dead bodies
lying outside the door, but you must not concern yourself about them.
The people who are inside the house are all so sound asleep that it will
not be easy to awake them; but you must go straight to the table-drawer,
and take out three bits of bread, and if you hear anyone snoring, pluck
three feathers from his head; he will not waken for that.'

The man did this; when he had got the bits of bread he first plucked out
one feather.

'Oof!' screamed Farmer Weatherbeard.

So the man plucked out another, and then Farmer Weatherbeard
shrieked 'Oof!' again; but when the man had plucked the third, Farmer
Weatherbeard screamed so loudly that the man thought that brick and
mortar would be rent in twain, but for all that he went on sleeping.
And now the Eagle told the man what he was to do next, and he did it.
He went to the stable door, and there he stumb