fetch a burning coal from there and
light my fire,' thought she, and opened the door of the castle. When she
reached the place where the fire was kindled, a hideous man-eater was
crouching over it.

'Peace be with you, grandfather,' said she.

'The same to you,' replied the man-eater. 'What brings you here, Udea?'

'I came to ask for a lump of burning coal, to light my fire with.'

'Do you want a big lump or a little lump?'

'Why, what difference does it make?' said she.

'If you have a big lump you must give me a strip of your skin from your
ear to your thumb, and if you have a little lump, you must give me a
strip from your ear to your little finger.'

Udea, who thought that one sounded as bad as the other, said she would
take the big lump, and when the man-eater had cut the skin, she went
home again. And as she hastened on a raven beheld the blood on the
ground, and plastered it with earth, and stayed by her till she reached
the castle. And as she entered the door he flew past, and she shrieked
from fright, for up to that moment she had not seen him. In her terror
she called after him. 'May you get the same start as you have given me!'

'Why should you wish me harm,' asked the raven pausing in his flight,
'when I have done you a service?'

'What service have you done me?' said she.

'Oh, you shall soon see,' replied the raven, and with his bill he
scraped away all the earth he had smeared over the blood and then flew
away.

In the night the man-eater got up, and followed the blood till he came
to Udea's castle. He entered through the gate which she had left open,
and went on till he reached the inside of the house. But here he was
stopped by the seven doors, six of wood and one of iron, and all fast
locked. And he called through them 'Oh Udea, what did you see your
grandfather doing?'

'I saw him spread silk under him, and silk over him, and lay himself
down in a four-post bed.'

When he heard that, the man-eater broke in one door, and laughed and
went away.

And the second night he came back, and asked her again what she had seen
her grandfather doing, and she answered him as before, and he broke
in another door, and laughed and went away, and so each night till
he reached the seventh door. Then the maiden wrote a letter to her
brothers, and bound it round the neck of a pigeon, and said to it, 'Oh,
thou pigeon that served my father and my grandfather, carry this letter
to my brothers, and come back