Then said the old man, “Just go upstairs, and thou wilt find a room with two beds, shake them up, and put white linen on them, and then I, too, will come and lie down to sleep.” The girl went up, and when she had shaken the beds and put clean sheets on, she lay down in one of them without waiting any longer for the old man. After some time, however, the gray-haired man came, took his candle, looked at the girl and shook his head. When he saw that she had fallen into a sound sleep, he opened a trapdoor, and let her down into the cellar.

Late at night the woodcutter came home, and reproached his wife for leaving him to hunger all day. “It is not my fault,” she replied, “the girl went out with your dinner, and must have lost herself, but she is sure to come back tomorrow.” The woodcutter, however, arose before dawn to go into the forest, and requested that the second daughter should take him his dinner that day.