Page:Danish fairy and folk tales.djvu/50

 ," answered the shepherd, "and yonder is my castle." The stranger again bid the coachman drive as fast as possible. In a little while they rushed up to Ravensburg Castle. As they were ready to alight from the carriage, there was some one who knocked hard at the gate. It was the herdsman, who was anxious to come in. The stranger walked to the gate, inquiring what he could do for him. He wished to come into the castle, he said, for it belonged to him, and he had a right to demand admittance. The stranger meditated a little, whereupon he told the herdsman—who was a conjurer—that he might be allowed to come in, but first he must suffer the whole fate of the rye. "The fate of the rye!" repeated the conjurer; "what do you mean by that?" "I mean," answered the stranger, "that next fall you must be sown deep in the ground, and towards spring, when you come up, you must ripen in the sunshine and grow in the rain until you are ready for the harvest. Then you will be mowed and dried, and kept in the barn, until at length you will be threshed." "How is that!" cried the conjurer; "am I to be threshed?" "Of course you are," replied the stranger. "First you will be threshed, and then taken to the mill and ground." "Ground, too!" shouted the conjurer; "will I be ground also?" "Yes, both ground and sifted," answered the stranger. But the conjurer, hearing this, became so furious that he burst all into flint-stones.