“I well know your desire,” said the Cat. “You wish to have a beautiful horse. Come with me, and be my faithful servant for seven years, and then I will give you a horse more beautiful than any you have ever seen in your whole life.”
“Well, this is a wonderful Cat!” thought Hans, “but I am determined to see if she is telling the truth.”
So she took him with her into her enchanted castle, where there were nothing but cats who were her servants. They leapt nimbly upstairs and downstairs, and were merry and happy.
In the evening when they sat down to dinner, three of them had to make music. One played the bassoon, the other the fiddle, and the third put the trumpet to his lips, and blew out his cheeks as much as he possibly could.
When they had dined, the table was carried away, and the Cat said, “Now, Hans, come and dance with me.”
“No,” said he, “I won’t dance with a pussy cat. I have never done that yet.”
“Then take him to bed,” said she to the cats.
So one of them lighted him to his bedroom, one pulled his shoes off, one his stockings, and at last one of them blew out the candle.
Next morning they returned and helped him out of bed, one put his stockings on for him, one tied his garters, one brought his shoes, one washed him, and one dried his face with her tail.
He, however, had to serve the Cat, and chop some wood every day. And to do that, he had an axe of silver, while the wedge and saw were of silver and the mallet of copper. So he chopped the wood small.
He stayed there in the house and had good meat and drink, but never saw any one but the Tabby-Cat and her servants.
Once she said to him, “Go and mow my meadow, and dry the grass,” and gave him a scythe of silver, and a whetstone of gold, but bade him deliver them up again carefully.
So Hans went thither, and did what he was bidden, and when he had finished the work, he carried the scythe, whetstone, and hay to the house, and asked if it was not yet time for her to give him his reward.
“No,” said the Cat, “you must first do something more for me of the same kind. There is timber of silver, carpenter’s axe, square, and everything that is needful, all of silver, with these build me a small house.”
Then Hans built the small house, and said that he had now done everything, and still he had no horse.