Alas! my poor children, to what a place have you come! Know you not
that this is the house of an ogre who eats little children?" "Alas!"
replied Little Thumbling, who trembled from head to foot, as indeed did
all his brothers, "what shall we do? We shall certainly be all eaten up
by the wolves to-night, if you do not give us shelter, and, in that
case, we would rather be eaten by the ogre; perhaps he may have pity
upon us, if you are kind enough to ask him." The ogre's wife, who
thought that she might be able to hide them from her husband till the
next morning, let the children come in, and led them where they could
warm themselves by a good fire, for there was a whole sheep on the spit,
roasting for the ogre's supper.

Just as they were beginning to get warm they heard two or three loud
knocks at the door. It was the ogre who had come home. His wife
immediately made the children hide under the bed, and went to open the
door. The ogre first asked if his supper was ready, and if she had drawn
the wine, and with that he sat down to his meal. The mutton was all but
raw, but he liked it all the better for that. He sniffed right and left,
saying that he smelt fresh meat. "It must be the calf I have just
skinned," said his wife. "I tell you, I smell fresh meat," replied the
ogre, giving an angry glance at his wife; "there is something here I do
not understand." With these words, he rose from the table and went
straight towards the bed. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "so this is the way in
which you would deceive me, you wretched woman! I do not know what
hinders me from eating you also! It is well for you that you are such an
old creature! But here is some game, which comes in handy, and will
serve to feast three of my ogre friends, who are soon coming to pay me a
visit." He dragged the children from under the bed, one after the other.
They fell upon their knees, begging for mercy, but they had to deal with
the most cruel of all the ogres, and who, far from feeling pity for
them, devoured them already with his eyes, and said to his wife that
they would be dainty bits, when she had made a good sauce for them. He
went and took up a large knife, and as he came towards the children
again, he whetted it on a long stone that he held in his left hand. He
had already seized one of them, when his wife said to him, "Why are you
doing that at this hour of night? Will it not be time enough to-morrow?"
"Hold your peace," replied the ogre. "They will