So the father borrowed an ax, and he and the scholar went together to the forest, where the young man helped with the work and was very lively and merry. About noon, when the sun stood right over their heads, the father sat down to rest for a while and eat his dinner.

The scholar, however, took his share of bread and said: “I am not tired. I will go a little deeper into the forest and look for birds’ nests.”

“Oh, you silly fellow!” his father exclaimed, “why do you want to run about? You will get so weary you will not be able to raise your arm. Keep quiet a bit and sit down here with me.”

But the young man would not do that. He went off among the trees eating his bread and peeping about among the bushes for nests. To and fro he wandered until he came to an immense hollow oak tree. The tree was certainly hundreds of years old, and five men taking hold of hands could not have reached around it.

The scholar had stopped to look at this great tree thinking that many a bird’s nest must be built within its hollow trunk when he fancied he heard a voice. He listened and there came to his ears a half-smothered cry of “Let me out!”

He looked around, but could see no one. Indeed, it seemed to him that the voice came from the ground. So he called, “Where are you?”

The voice replied, “Here I am among the roots of the oak tree. Let me out! Let me out!”

The scholar therefore began to search at the foot of the tree where the roots spread. Finally in a little hollow, he found a glass bottle. He picked it up and held it so he could look through toward the light. Then he perceived a thing inside shaped like a frog which kept jumping up and down.

“Let me out! Let me out!” the thing cried again; and the scholar, not suspecting any evil, drew the stopper from the bottle.

Immediately the little creature sprang forth, and it grew and grew until in a few moments it stood before the scholar a frightful goblin half as tall as the oak tree. “Do you know what your reward is for letting me out of that glass bottle?” the goblin cried with a voice of thunder.

“No,” the scholar answered without fear, “how should I?”

“Then I will tell you that I must break your neck,” the goblin announced.

“You should have told me that before,” the scholar said, “and you would have stayed where you were. But my head will remain on my shoulders in spite of you, for there are several people’s opinions to be asked yet about this matter.”

The Goblin Threatens The Scholar

“Keep your people out of my way,” the goblin snarled. “I was shut up in that bottle for a punishment, and I have been kept there for such a length of time that I long ago vowed I would kill whoever let me out for not coming to release me sooner. So I shall break your neck.”

“Softly, softly!” the scholar responded, “that is quicker said than done. I don’t know whether to believe your word or not. You told me you were in that bottle. But how could such a giant as you are get into so small a space? Prove that you spoke the truth by retiring into the bottle, and afterward do what you please with me.”

Full of pride, the goblin boasted, “I can easily furnish you the proof you ask”; and he shrank and shrank until he was as small as before. Then he crept back into the bottle.

Instantly the scholar replaced the stopper, and put the bottle once more where it had been among the oak roots. He picked