saw a great stout man, at least twenty feet high, sitting on the
bench.

'Good evening, grandfather!' said the lad.

'Well, here I've sat three hundred years', said the man who sat on
the bench, 'and no one has ever come and called me grandfather
before.' Then the lad sat down by the man's side, and began to talk
to him as if they had been old friends.

'But what's come over your mother?' said the man, after they had
chattered a while. 'I think she swooned away; you had better look
after her.'

So the lad went and took hold of the old dame; and dragged her up the
hall along the floor. That brought her to herself, and she kicked,
and scratched, and flung herself about, and at last sat down upon a
heap of firewood in the corner; but she was so frightened that she
scarce dared to look one in the face.

After a while, the lad asked if they could spend the night there.

'Yes, to be sure', said the man.

So they went on talking again, but the lad soon got hungry, and
wanted to know if they could get food as well as lodging.

'Of course', said the man, 'that might be got too.' And after he had
sat a while longer, he rose up and threw six loads of dry pitch-pine
on the fire. This made the old hag still more afraid.