After that the Lord went to the quenching-tub, put the glowing little man into it so that the water closed over him, and after he had carefully cooled him, he gave him his blessing, when, behold, the little man sprang nimbly out, looking fresh, upright, healthy, and as if he were twenty years old.
The smith, who had watched everything closely and attentively, invited them all to supper. Now he had an old half-blind, hunchbacked mother-in-law. She went to the youth and asked earnestly if the fire had burned him much.
He answered that he had never felt better, and that he had sat in the glowing coals as if he had been in cool dew.
The youth's words echoed in the the old woman's ears all night long, and early the next morning, after the Lord had gone on his way again and had heartily thanked the smith, the latter thought he might make his old mother-in-law young again in the same way, for he had watched everything very carefully, and it used the skills of his trade. Therefore he called to her, asking her if she, too, would like to go prancing about like an eighteen-year-old girl.