He made for it. He reached a house and knocked on the door. It was the house of the Chief Iron Worker.
-"Who is it? Who disturbs me in my home?" spoke in a stuck-up voice the Chief Iron Worker and s’ightly opened the door.
-"Chief Iron Worker, I come in peace. Ilm only looking for a roof over my head… Well, and something to eat would not hurt my hungry stomach", said the Poor Lad politely.
-"So be it! You will get shelter and food, but by the day after tomorrow you will have founded one thousand cast-iron kettles", said the Chief Iron Worker.
-"Itls a deal", answered the lad and stretched out his hand through the doorls crack.
Chief Iron Worker let him inside. The two of them ate a very good meal and then they rested. The Poor Lad woke up the next morning at daybreak, set a huge fire, melted the iron and stirred it vigorously from morning till night. Then he moulded one thousand cast-iron kettles and put each of them on top of another, forming a big mountain of iron that astonished even the birds of the air. Then the Chief Iron Worker said:
-“You kept your promise and made a thousand cast-iron kettles. You take one, too!” and pushed a big cast-iron kettle towards the lad.
The lad thanked him for the gift and proceeded on his way. From here the road was straight and in a blink of an eye, he got to the death cap mushroom. Yet he didnlt see the mushroom, or the hole, or the moss or the ray of the sun. Instead, he found helmets, spoons, knives, rusty forks and worn out boots. The Poor Lad took out the big cast-iron kettle and started to gather the mess. He worked for seven days and seven nights, but with no visible results. And alas! On the eighth day, the Poor Lad sat down gloomy under the shade of an oak and said to himself that the ice palace would perish because he could not fight the garbage by himself. All of a sudden he heard the owl from the oak:
