Grimms' Fairy Tales

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face? Was it not enough to clip off the end of my beard? Now you have
cut off the best part of it. I cannot let myself be seen by my people.
I wish you had been made to run the soles off your shoes!' Then he took
out a sack of pearls which lay in the rushes, and without another word
he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone.

It happened that soon afterwards the mother sent the two children to the
town to buy needles and thread, and laces and ribbons. The road led them
across a heath upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn about. There
they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and
round above them; it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a
rock not far away. Immediately they heard a loud, piteous cry. They ran
up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance
the dwarf, and was going to carry him off.

The children, full of pity, at once took tight hold of the little man,
and pulled against the eagle so long that at last he let his booty go.