the son had often heard tell of her , and one fall , when his parents had already come home from the mountain pasture , he put on his full uniform , saddled his service horse , thrust his pistols in the holsters , and thus rode up into the hills . when he rode toward the pasture , such a fire burned in the herdsman 's hut that it lit up every road , and then he knew that the mountain folk were inside . so he tied his horse to a pine - tree , took a pistol from its holster , crept up to the hut , and peeped through the window . and there sat an old man and a woman who were quite crooked and shriveled up with age , and so unspeakably ugly that he had never seen anything like it in his life ; but with them was a maiden , and she was so surpassingly beautiful that he fell in love with her at once , and felt that he could not live without her . all had cow 's tails , and th lovely maiden , too . and he could see that they had only just arrived , for everything was in disorder . the maiden was busy washing the ugly old man , and the woman was building a fire under the great cheese - kettle on the hearth .
the old man and woman were crooked and shriveled up with age .
how did the old man and woman look different from the maiden ?
how did the old man and woman look different from the maiden ?