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a bright fire in one of the rooms, dragged the woodcarver’s bench and knife beside it, and sat down at the lathe.
    ‘Oh, if only I could get the shivers!’ he said. ‘But this place doesn’t look very promising either.’
    When it was nearly midnight he stirred the fire up. He was just blowing on it when he heard voices from a corner of the room.
    ‘
Miaow, miaow!
We’re so cold!’ they said.
    ‘What are you yelling about?’ he said over his shoulder. ‘If you’re cold, come and sit down by the fire.’
    Next moment two huge black cats leaped out of the shadows and sat on either side of him, staring at him with their coal-red eyes.
    ‘Fancy a game of cards?’ they said.
    ‘Why not?’ he replied. ‘But let me see your claws first.’
    So they stretched out their paws.
    ‘Good God,’ he said, ‘what long nails you’ve got. I’ll have to trim them before we start to play.’
    And he seized the cats by their necks, lifted them up to the woodcarver’s bench, and tightened the vice around their paws.
    ‘I don’t like the look of these at all,’ he said. ‘They’ve put me right off the idea of playing cards.’
    And he struck them both dead, and threw them into the moat.
    He had just sat down again when from every corner of the room there came black cats and black dogs, each of them wearing a red-hot collar with a red-hot chain. They piled in from every direction until he couldn’t move. They howled, they barked, they shrieked horribly, they jumped into the fire and scattered the burning logs in all directions.
    He watched curiously for a minute or two, but finally he lost patience. Seizing his knife, he cried, ‘Out with you, you scoundrels!’
    And he hacked away merrily. Some of them he killed, and the others ran away. When all the live ones had fled, he threw the dead ones into the moat, and came back inside to warm up.
    But his eyes wouldn’t stay open, so he went to the large bed in the corner of the room.
    ‘This looks comfortable,’ he thought. ‘Just the job!’
    But as soon as he lay down, the bed began to move. It trundled to the door, which flew open, and then rolled all the way through the castle, gathering speed as it went.
    ‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘but let’s go faster still.’
    And on it rolled as though drawn by six fine horses, along the corridors, up the stairs and down again, until suddenly – hop! It turned upside down, trapping him underneath. It lay on him like a mountain.
    But he threw off the blankets and the pillows and clambered out.
    ‘I’ve finished with the bed now,’ he called out. ‘If anyone else wants it, they can have it.’
    And he lay down by his fire, and went peacefully to sleep.
    When the king came in the morning he found him lying there, and said, ‘Oh, that’s a pity. The ghosts have killed him. Such a handsome young man, too!’
    The boy heard him, and got up at once. ‘They haven’t killed me yet, your majesty,’ he said.
    ‘Oh! You’re alive!’ said the king. ‘Well, I’m glad to see you. How did you get on?’
    ‘Very well, thanks,’ said the boy. ‘One night down, two more to go.’
    He went back to the inn. The innkeeper was astonished.
    ‘You’re alive! I never thought I’d see you again. Did you get the shivers?’
    ‘No, not once. I hope someone can give me the shivers tonight.’
    The second night he went up to the castle, lit his fire, and sat down again.
    ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I wish someone could give me the shivers.’
    As midnight approached he heard a commotion up in the chimney. Banging and shouting, scuffling, screaming, and finally, with a loud yell, the lower half of a man fell down into the fireplace.
    ‘What are you doing?’ said the boy. ‘Where’s your other half?’
    But the half-man, not having eyes or ears, couldn’t hear him or see where anything was, and it ran around the room knocking into things and falling over and scrambling up again.
    Then there was more noise from the chimney, and in a cloud