Part 13

"But the flock never stopped--on it went, and all that the goody and the man did was to look daggers at the smith for making game of them. Then the smith went on,

"'It would be fine fun to see if I could hold the whole flock, so many as they are;' for he was a stout strong fellow, and so he took hold, with his big tongs, by the old man's coat tail, and the man all the while bellowed and wriggled; but Taper Tom only said,

"'Hang on, if you care to come with us.'

"So the smith had to go along too. He bent his back and stuck his heels into the hill, and tried to get loose; but it was all no good, he stuck fast, as though he had been screwed tight with his own anvil, and, whether he would or no, he had to dance along with the rest.

"So, when they came near to the king's grange, the mastiff ran out and began to bay and bark as though they were wolves or beggars; and when the princess looked out of the window to see what was the matter, and set eyes on this strange pack, she laughed inwardly. But Taper Tom was not content with that.

"'Bide a bit,' he said, 'she'll soon have to open the door of her mouth wider;' and as he said that he turned off with his band to the back of the grange.

"So, when they passed by the kitchen, the door stood open, and the cook was just beating the porridge; but when she saw Taper Tom and his pack she came running out at the door, with her brush in one hand, and a wooden ladle full of smoking porridge in the other, and she laughed as though her sides would split; and when she saw the smith there too, she slapped her thigh and went off again in a loud peal. But when she had laughed her laugh out, she too thought the golden goose so lovely she must just stroke it.

"'Taper Tom! Taper Tom!' she bawled out, and came running out with the ladle of porridge in her fist, 'may I have leave to stroke that pretty bird of yours?'

"'Better let her stroke me,' said the smith.

"'I daresay,' said Taper Tom.

"But when the cook heard that she got angry.

"'What is that you say!' she cried, and let fly at the smith with the ladle.

"'Hang on, if you care to come with us,' said Taper Tom. So she stuck fast, she, too; and for all her kicks and plunges, and all her scolding and screaming, and all her riving and striving, and all her rage, she too had to limp along with them.

"But when they came outside the window of the princess, there she stood, waiting for them; and when she saw they had taken the cook too, with her ladle and brush, she opened her mouth wide, and laughed loud, so that the king had to hold her upright. So Taper Tom got the princess and half the kingdom; and they had such a merry wedding, it was heard and talked of far and wide."

THE TROLLS IN HEDALE WOOD.

"Up at a place in Vaage, in Gudbrandsdale, there lived once on a time in the days of old a poor couple. They had many children, and two of the sons who were about half grown up had to be always roaming about the country begging. So it was that they were well known with all the highways and by-ways, and they also knew the short cut into Hedale.

"It happened once that they wanted to get thither, but at the same time they heard that some falconers had built themselves a hut at Maela, and so they wished to kill two birds with one stone, and see the birds, and how they are taken, and so they took the cut across Longmoss. But you must know it was far on towards autumn, and so the milkmaids had all gone home from the shielings, and they could neither get shelter nor food. Then they had to keep straight on for Hedale, but the path was a mere track, and when night fell they lost it; and, worse still, they could not find the falconers' hut either, and before they knew where they were, they found themselves in the very depths of the forest. As soon as they saw they could not get on, they began to break boughs, lit a fire, and built themselves a bower of branches, for they had a hand-axe with them; and, after that, they plucked heather and moss and made themselves a bed. So a little while after they had lain down, they heard something which sniffed and snuffed so with its nose; then the boys pricked up their ears and listened sharp to hear whether it were wild beasts or wood trolls, and just then something snuffed up the air louder than ever, and said--

"'There's a smell of Christian blood here!'

"At the same time they heard such a heavy foot-fall that the earth shook under it, and then they knew well enough the trolls must be about.

"'Heaven help us! what shall we do?' said the younger boy to his brother.

"'Oh! you must stand as you are under the fir, and be ready to take our bags and run away when you see them coming; as for me, I will take the hand-axe,' said the other.

"All at once they saw the trolls coming at them like mad, and they were so tall and stout, their heads were just as high as the fir-tops; but it was a good thing they had only one eye between them all three, and that they used turn and turn about. They had a hole in their foreheads into which they put it, and turned and twisted it with their hands. The one that went first, he must have it to see his way, and the others went behind and took hold of the first.

"'Take up the traps,' said the elder of the boys, 'but don't run away too far, but see how things go; as they carry their eye so high aloft they'll find it hard to see me when I get behind them.'

"Yes! the brother ran before and the trolls after him, meanwhile the elder got behind them and chopped the hindmost troll with his axe on the ankle, so that the troll gave an awful shriek, and the foremost troll got so afraid he was all of a shake and dropped the eye. But the boy was not slow to snap it up. It was bigger than two quart pots put together, and so clear and bright, that though it was pitch dark, everything was as clear as day as soon as he looked through it.

"When the trolls saw he had taken their eye and done one of them harm, they began to threaten him with all the evil in the world if he didn't give back the eye at once.

"'I don't care a farthing for trolls and threats,' said the boy, 'now I've got three eyes to myself and you three have got none, and besides two of you have to carry the third.'

"If we don't get our eye back this minute, you shall be both turned to stocks and stones,' screeched the trolls.

"But the boy thought things needn't go so fast; he was not afraid for witchcraft or hard words. If they didn't leave him in peace he'd chop them all three, so that they would have to creep and crawl along the earth like cripples and crabs.

"When the trolls heard that, they got still more afraid and began to use soft words. They begged so prettily that he would give them their eye back, and then he should have both gold and silver and all that he wished to ask. Yes! that seemed all very fine to the lad, but he must have the gold and silver first, and so he said, if one of them would go home and fetch as much gold and silver as would fill his and his brother's bags, and give them two good cross-bows beside, they might have their eye, but he should keep it until they did what he said.

"The trolls were very put out, and said none of them could go when he hadn't his eye to see with, but all at once one of them began to bawl out for their goody, for you must know they had a goody between them all three as well as an eye. After a while an answer came from a knoll a long way off to the north. So the trolls said she must come with two steel cross-bows and two buckets full of gold and silver, and then it was not long, you may fancy, before she was there. And when she heard what had happened, she too began to threaten them with witchcraft. But the trolls got so afraid, and begged her beware of the little wasp, for she couldn't be sure he would not take away her eye too. So she threw them the cross-bows and the buckets and the gold and the silver, and strode off to the knoll with the trolls; and since that time no one has ever heard that the trolls have walked in Hedale wood snuffing after Christian blood."

THE SKIPPER AND OLD NICK.

"Once on a time there was a skipper who was so wonderfully lucky in everything he undertook; there was no one who got such freights, and no one who earned so much money, for it rolled in upon him on all sides, and, in a word, there was no one who was good to make such voyages as he, for whithersoever he sailed he took the wind with him;--nay! men did say he had only to turn his hat and the wind turned the way he wished it to blow.

"So he sailed for many years, both in the timber trade and to China, and he had gathered money together like grass. But it so happened that once he was coming home across the North sea with every sail set, as though he had stolen both ship and lading; but he who wanted to lay hold on him went faster still. It was Old Nick, for with him he had made a bargain, as one may well fancy, and that very day the time was up, and he might look any moment that Old Nick would come and fetch him.

"Well! the skipper came up on deck out of the cabin and looked at the weather; then he called for the carpenter and some others of the crew, and said they must go down into the hold and hew two holes in the ship's bottom, and when they had done that they were to lift the pumps out of their beds and drive them down tight into the holes they had made, so that the sea might rise high up into the pumps.

"The crew wondered at all this, and thought it a funny bit of work, but they did as the skipper ordered; they hewed holes in the ship's bottom and drove the pumps in so tight that never a drop of water could come to the cargo, but up in the pump itself the North sea stood seven feet high.

"They had only just thrown the chips overboard after their piece of work when Old Nick came on board in a gust of wind and caught the skipper by the throat.

"'Stop, father!' said the skipper, 'there's no need to be in such a hurry,' and as he said that he began to defend himself and to loose the claws which Old Nick had stuck into him by the help of a marling-spike.

"'Haven't you made a bargain that you would always keep the ship dry and tight?' asked the skipper. 'Yes! you're a pretty fellow; look down the pumps, there's the water standing seven feet high in the pipe. Pump, devil, pump! and pump the ship dry, and then you may take me and have me as soon and as long as you choose.'

"Old Nick was not so clever that he was not taken in; he pumped and strove, and the sweat ran down his back like a brook, so that you might have turned a mill at the end of his backbone, but he only pumped out of the North sea and into the North sea again. At last he got tired of that work, and when he could not pump a stroke more, he set off in a sad temper home to his grandmother to take a rest. As for the skipper, he let him stay a skipper as long as he chose, and if he isn't dead, he is still perhaps sailing on his voyages whithersoever he will, and twisting the wind as he chooses only by turning his hat."

GOODY GAINST-THE-STREAM.

"Once on a time there was a man who had a goody who was so cross-grained that there was no living with her. As for her husband he could not get on with her at all, for whatever he wished she set her face right against it.

"So it fell one Sunday in summer that the man and his wife went out into the field to see how the crop looked; and when they came to a field of rye on the other side of the river, the man said--

"'Ay! now it is ripe. To-morrow we must set to work and reap it.'

"'Yes,' said his wife, 'to-morrow we can set to work and shear it.'

"'What do you say,' said the man; 'shall we shear it? Mayn't we just as well reap it?'

"'No,' said the goody, 'It shall be shorn.'

"'There is nothing so bad as a little knowledge,' said the man, 'but you must have lost the little wit you had. When did you ever hear of shearing a field?'

"'I know little, and I care to know little, I dare say,' said the goody, 'but I know very well that this field shall be shorn and not reaped.'

"That was what she said, and there was no help for it; it must and should be shorn.

"So they walked about and quarrelled and strove till they came to the bridge across the river, just above a deep hole.

"''Tis an old saying,' said the man, 'that good tools make good work, but I fancy it will be a fine swathe that is shorn with a pair of shears. Mayn't we just as well reap the field after all?' he asked.

"'No! no! shear, shear,' bawled out the goody, who jumped about and clipped like a pair of scissors under her husband's nose. In her shrewishness she took such little heed that she tripped over a beam on the bridge, and down she went _plump_ into the stream.

"''Tis hard to wean any one from bad ways,' said the man, 'but it were strange if I were not sometimes in the right, I too.'

"Then he swam out into the hole and caught his wife by the hair of her head, and so got her head above water.

"'Shall we reap the field now?' were the first words he said.

"'Shear! shear! shear!' screeched the goody.

"'I'll teach you to shear,' said the man, as he ducked her under the water; but it was no good, they must shear it, she said, as soon as ever she came up again.

"'I can't think anything else than that the goody is mad,' said the man to himself. 'Many are mad and never know it; many have wit and never show it; but all the same, I'll try her once more.'

"But as soon as ever he ducked her under the water again, she held her hands up out of the water and began to clip with her fingers like a pair of shears. Then the man fell into a great rage and ducked her down both well and long; but while he was about it, the goody's head fell down below the water, and she got so heavy all at once, that he had to let her go.

"'No! no!' he said, 'you wish to drag me down with you into the hole, but you may lie there by yourself.'

"So the goody was left in the river.

"But after a while the man thought it was ill she should lie there and not get Christian burial, and so he went down the course of the stream and hunted and searched for her, but for all his pains he could not find her. Then he came with all his men and brought his neighbours with him, and they all in a body began to drag the stream and to search for her all along it. But for all their searching they found no goody.

"'Oh!' said the man, 'I have it. All this is no good, we search in the wrong place. This goody was a sort by herself; there was not such another in the world while she was alive. She was so cross and contrary, and I'll be bound it is just the same now she is dead. We had better just go and hunt for her up stream, and drag for her above the force,[1] maybe she has floated up thither.'

[Footnote 1: Waterfall.]

"And so it was. They went up stream and sought for her above the force, and there lay the goody, sure enough! Yes! She was well called GOODY GAINST-THE-STREAM."

HOW TO WIN A PRINCE.

"Once on a time there was a king's son who made love to a lass, but after they had become great friends and were as good as betrothed, the prince began to think little of her, and he got it into his head that she wasn't clever enough for him, and so he wouldn't have her.

"So he thought how he might be rid of her; and at last he said he would take her to wife all the same, if she could come to him--

'Not driving, And not riding; Not walking, And not carried; Not fasting, And not full-fed; Not naked, And not clad; Not in the daylight, And not by night.'

"For all that he fancied she could never do.

"So she took three barleycorns and swallowed them, and then she was not fasting, and yet not full-fed; and next she threw a net over her, and so she was

'Not naked, And yet not clad.'

Next she got a ram and sat on him, so that her feet touched the ground; and so she waddled along, and was

'Not driving, And not riding; Not walking, And not carried.'

And all this happened in the twilight, betwixt night and day.

"So when she came to the guard at the palace, she begged that she might have leave to speak with the prince; but they wouldn't open the gate, she looked such a figure of fun.

"But for all that the noise woke up the prince, and he went to the window to see what it was.

"So she waddled up to the window, and twisted off one of the ram's horns, and took it and rapped with it against the window.

"And so they had to let her in, and have her for their princess."

BOOTS AND THE BEASTS.

"Once on a time there was a man who had an only son, but he lived in need and wretchedness, and when he lay on his death-bed, he told his son he had nothing in the world but a sword, a bit of coarse linen, and a few crusts of bread--that was all he had to leave him. Well! when the man was dead, the lad made up his mind to go out into the world to try his luck; so he girded the sword about him, and took the crusts and laid them in the bit of linen for his travelling fare; for you must know they lived far away up on a hillside in the wood, far from folk. Now the way he went took him over a fell, and when he had got up so high that he could look over the country, he set his eyes on a lion, a falcon, and an ant, who stood there quarrelling over a dead horse. The lad was sore afraid when he saw the lion, but he called out to him and said he must come and settle the strife between them and share the horse, so that each should get what he ought to have.

"So the lad took his sword and shared the horse, as well as he could. To the lion he gave the carcass and the greater portion; the falcon got some of the entrails and other titbits; and the ant got the head. When he had done, he said,--

"'Now I think it is fairly shared. The lion shall have most, because he is biggest and strongest; the falcon shall have the best, because he is nice and dainty; and the ant shall have the skull, because he loves to creep about in holes and crannies.'

"Yes! they were all well pleased with his sharing; and so they asked him what he would like to have for sharing the horse so well.

"'Oh,' he said, 'if I have done you a service, and you are pleased with it, I am also pleased; but I won't be paid.'

"'Yes; but he must have something,' they said.

"'If you won't have anything else,' said the lion, 'you shall have three wishes.'

"But the lad knew not what to wish for; and so the lion asked him if he wouldn't wish that he might be able to turn himself into a lion; and the two others asked him if he wouldn't wish to be able to turn himself into a falcon and an ant. Yes! all that seemed to him good and right; and so he wished these three wishes.

"Then he threw aside his sword and wallet, turned himself into a falcon, and began to fly. So he flew on and on, till he came over a great lake; but when he had almost flown across it he got so tired and sore on the wing he couldn't fly any longer; and as he saw a steep rock that rose out of the water, he perched on it and rested himself. He thought it a wondrous strong rock, and walked about it for a while; but when he had taken a good rest, he turned himself again into a little falcon, and flew away till he came to the king's grange. There he perched on a tree, just before the princess's windows. When she saw the falcon she set her heart on catching it. So she lured it to her; and as soon as the falcon came under the casement she was ready, and pop! she shut to the window, and caught the bird and put him into a cage.

"In the night the lad turned himself into an ant and crept out of the cage; and then he turned himself into his own shape, and went up and sat down by the princess's bed. Then she got so afraid that she fell to screeching out and awoke the king, who came into her room and asked whatever was the matter.

"'Oh!' said the princess, 'there is some one here.'

"But in a trice the lad became an ant, crept into the cage, and turned himself into a falcon. The king could see nothing for her to be afraid of; so he said to the princess it must have been the nightmare riding her. But he was hardly out of the door before it was all the same story over again. The lad crept out of the cage as an ant, and then became his own self, and sat down by the bedside of the princess.

"Then she screamed loud, and the king came again to see what was the matter.

"'There is some one here,' screamed the princess. But the lad crept into the cage again, and sat perched up there like a falcon. The king looked and hunted high and low; and when he could see nothing he got cross that his rest was broken, and said it was all a trick of the princess.

"'If you scream like that again,' he said, 'you shall soon know that your father is the king.'

"But for all that, the king's back was scarcely turned before the lad was by the princess's side again. This time she did not scream, although she was so afraid she did not know which way to turn.

"So the lad asked why she was so afraid.

"Didn't he know? She was promised to a hill-ogre, and the very first time she came under bare sky he was to come and take her; and so when the lad came she thought it was the hill-ogre. And, besides, every Thursday morning came a messenger from the hill-ogre, and that was a dragon, to whom the king had to give nine fat pigs every time he came; and that was why he had given it out that the man who could free him from the dragon should have the princess and half the kingdom.

"The lad said he would soon do that; and as soon as it was daybreak the princess went to the king and said there was a man in there who would free him from the dragon and the tax of pigs. As soon as the king heard that, he was very glad, for the dragon had eaten up so many pigs, there would soon have been no more left in the whole kingdom. It happened that day was just a Thursday morning, and so the lad strode off to the spot where the dragon used to come to eat the pigs, and the shoeblack in the king's grange showed him the way.

"Yes! the dragon came; and he had nine heads, and he was so wild and wroth that fire and flame flared out of his nostrils when he did not see his feast of pigs; and he flew upon the lad as though he would gobble him up alive. But, pop! he turned himself into a lion and fought with the dragon, and tore one head off him after another. The dragon was strong, that he was; and he spat fire and venom. But as the fight went on he hadn't more than one head left, though that was the toughest. At last the lad got that torn off, too; and then it was all over with the dragon.

"So he went to the king, and there was great joy all over the palace; and the lad was to have the princess. But once on a time, as they were walking in the garden, the hill-ogre came flying at them himself, and caught up the princess and bore her off through the air.

"As for the lad, he was for going after her at once; but the king said he mustn't do that, for he had no one else to lean on now he had lost his daughter. But for all that, neither prayers nor preaching were any good: the lad turned himself into a falcon and flew off. But when he could not see them anywhere, he called to mind that wonderful rock in the lake, where he had rested the first time he ever flew. So he settled there, and after he had done that he turned himself into an ant, and crept down through a crack in the rock. So when he had crept about awhile, he came to a door which was locked. But he knew a way how to get in, for he crept through the key-hole, and what do you think he saw there? Why, a strange princess, combing a hill-ogre's hair that had three heads.

"'I have come all right,' said the lad to himself; for he had heard how the king had lost two daughters before, whom the trolls had taken.