t 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.'

Then the King knew how his watching had been done, and fell into such a
rage that he ordered his people to chase the youth back to his own home
at once; but first they were to cut three red stripes in his back, and
rub salt into them.

When the youth reached home again, anyone can imagine what a state of
mind he was in. He had gone out once to seek a place, he said, but never
would he do such a thing again.

Next day the second son said that he would now go out into the world to
seek his fortune. His father and mother said 'No,' and bade him look
at his brother's back, but the youth would not give up his design, and
stuck to it, and after a long, long time he got leave to go, and set
forth on his way. When he had walked all day he too came to the King's
palace, and the King was standing outside on the steps, and asked where
he was going; and when the youth replied that he was going about in
search of a place, the King said that he might enter into his service
and watch his seven foals. Then the King promised him the same
punishment and the same reward that he had promised his brother.

The youth at once consented to this and entered into the King's service,
for he thought he could easily watch the foals and inform the King what
they ate and drank.

In the grey light of dawn the Master of the Horse let out the seven
foals, and off they went again over hill and dale, and off went the lad
after them. But all went with him as it had gone with his brother. When
he had run after the foals for a long, long time and was hot and tired,
he passed by a cleft in the rock