Iron John(Part 2)

The king had an eight-year-old son. One day, while the prince was playing in the palace courtyard, his golden ball fell into the giant's cage. The boy ran to the cage and asked for his ball back. The giant said, "If you open the cage, I will give you your ball." The boy replied, "No, I won't do that. The king has forbidden it," and walked away. 

The next day, he returned to the cage again and asked for his ball. The wild giant insisted, "Open the door." But the boy refused once more. On the third day, while the king was out hunting, the child came back and said to the giant, "Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the key to open it." The wild giant responded, "The key is under your mother's pillow. You can go and get it." 

The boy, who was only thinking about his ball, set aside all his doubts and fetched the key. The door creaked open with difficulty, and he even hurt his finger in the process. When the door opened, the wild giant emerged, handed the boy his golden ball, and made to flee. The boy, frightened, called out to him, saying, "Giant, don’t run away, or they will beat me!" Hearing this, the giant turned back, picked up the boy from the ground, placed him on his shoulder, and strode away toward the forest. 

When the king returned from the hunt and saw the empty cage, he asked the queen about it. The queen knew nothing, so she set out to search for the key, but it was not found. She called for her son, but there was no sign of him either. The king sent out a search party into the mountains and plains, but they did not find him. It was easy to guess what had happened, and a period of mourning was declared in the court.

When the wild giant reached the forest, he set the boy down from his shoulder and said, "You will neither see your father nor your mother again, but I will keep you with me because you freed me from bondage, and I have mercy on you. If you do everything I tell you, I will treat you well. My name is Iron John, and I possess more treasure and gold than anyone else in the world." Then he made a bed of dry moss for the boy and laid him upon it. 

The next day, Iron John took the boy to a spring and said, "Look at this golden spring, clear and sparkling like crystal. You must sit here and ensure that nothing falls into it to dirty the water. I will come every evening to see if you have followed my instructions." The boy sat by the spring and watched as sometimes a golden fish and sometimes a golden eel swam in the water, and he was careful to ensure that nothing fell into the spring.