Tales from the Fjeld Part 35

"'I'm looking out for a star at which to throw,' said Boots. 'Do you see that tiny little one due north, that's the one I choose.'

"'Nay! nay!' said the troll, 'let it bide as it is. You mustn't throw away my iron club.'

"'Well! well!' said Boots, 'you may have it again then, but perhaps you wouldn't mind if I tossed you up to the moon just for once.'

"No! the troll would have nothing to say to that either.

"'Oh! but blindman's buff,' said Boots, 'haven't you a mind to play blindman's buff?'

"Yes, that would be fine fun, the troll thought; 'but you shall be blindfold first,' said the troll to Boots.

"'Oh, yes, with all my heart,' said the lad, 'but the fairest way is that we draw lots, and then we shan't have anything to quarrel about.'

"Yes! yes! that was best, and then you may fancy Boots took care the troll should be the first to have the handkerchief over his eyes, and was the first 'buff.'

"But that just was a game. My! how they went in and out of the wood, and how the troll ran and stumbled over the stumps, so that the dust flew and the wood rang.

"'Haw! haw!' bawled the troll at last, 'the deil take me if I'll be buff any longer,' for he was in a great rage.

"'Bide a bit,' said Boots, 'and I'll stand still and call till you come and catch me.'

"Meanwhile he took a hemp-comb and ran round to the other side of the tarn, which was so deep it had no bottom.

"'Now come, here I stand,' bawled out Boots.

"'I dare say there are logs and stumps in the way,' said the troll.

"'Your ears can tell you there is no wood here,' said Boots, and then he swore to him there were no stumps or stocks.

"'Now come along.'

"So the troll set off again, but 'squash' it said, and there lay the troll in the tarn, and Boots hacked at his eyes with the hemp-comb every time he got his head above water.

"Now the troll begged so prettily for his life, that Boots thought it was a shame to take it, but first he had to give up the princess, and to bring back the other whom he had stolen before. And besides he had to promise that folk and flock should have peace, and then he let the troll out, and he took himself off home to his hill.

"But now Glibtongue became a man again, and came down out of the tree-top, and carried off the princess to the grange, as though he had set her free. And then he stole down and gave his arm to the other also, when Boots had brought her as far as the garden. And now there was such joy in the king's grange, that it was heard and talked of over land and realm, and Glibtongue was to be married to the youngest daughter.

"Well, it was all good and right, but after all it was not so well, for just as they were to have the feast, if that old troll had not gone down under earth and stopped all the springs of water.

"'If I can't do them any other harm,' he said, 'they sha'n't have water to boil their bridal brose.'

"So there was no help for it but to send for Boots again. Then he got him an iron bar, which was to be fifteen ells long, and six smiths were to make it red hot. Then he peeped through his key ring, and saw where the troll was, just as well underground as above it, and then he drove the bar down through the ground, and into the troll's backbone, and all I can say was, there was a smell of burnt horn fifteen miles round.

"'Haw! haw!' bellowed out the troll, 'let me out,' and in a trice he came tearing up through the hole, and all his back was burnt and singed up to the nape of his neck.

"But Boots was not slow, for he caught the troll and laid him on a stake that had thyme twisted round it, and there he had to be till he told him where he had got eyes from after those had been hacked out with the hemp-comb.

"'If you must know,' said the troll, 'I stole a turnip, and rubbed it well over with ointment, and then I cut it to the sizes I needed, and nailed them in tight with ten-penny nails, and better eyes I hope no Christian man will ever have.'

"Then the king came with the two princesses, and wanted to see the troll, and Glibtongue walked so bent and bowed, his coat tails were higher than his neck. But then the king caught sight of something glistening in the hair of Boots.

"'What have you got there?' he said.

"'Oh!' said Boots, 'nothing but the ring your daughter gave me when I freed her from the troll.'

"And now it came out how it had all happened. Glibtongue begged and prayed for himself, but for all his trying and all his crying there was no help for it, down he had to go into a pit full of snakes, and there he lay till he burst.

"Then they put an end to the troll, and then they began to be noisy and merry, and to drink and dance at the bridal of Boots, for now he was king of that company, and he got the youngest princess and half the kingdom.

"And here I lay my tale upon a sledge, And send it thee whose tongue hath sharper edge, But if thy tongue in wit is not so fine, Then shame on thee that throwest blame on mine."

THIS IS THE LAD WHO SOLD THE PIG.

"Once on a time there was a widow who had a son and he had set his heart on being nothing else than a tradesman. But you must know they were so poor that they had nothing that he could begin his trading with. The only thing his mother owned in the world was a sow pig, and he begged and prayed so long and so prettily for that, at last she was forced to let him have it.

"When he had got it he was to set off to sell it, that he might have some money to begin his trading. So he offered it to this man and that, good and bad alike; but there was no one who just then cared to buy a pig. At last he came to a rich old hunks; but you know much will always have more, and that man was one of the sort that never can have enough.

"'Will you buy a pig to-day?' said the lad; 'a good pig, and a long pig, and a fine fat pig.' That was what he said.

"The old hunks asked what he would have for it. It was at least worth six dollars, even between brothers, said the lad; but the times were so hard, and money so scarce, he didn't mind selling it for four dollars.

And that was as good as giving it away.

"No, that the old hunks would not do--he wouldn't give so much as a dollar even; he had more pigs already than he wanted, and was well off for pigs of that sort. But as the lad was so eager to sell, he would be willing to do him a turn, and deal with him; but the most he could give for the whole pig, every inch of it, was fourpence. If he would take that down, he might turn his pig into the sty with the rest. That was what the old hunks said.

"The lad thought it shameful that he should not get more for his pig; but then he thought that something was better than nothing, and so he took the fourpence and turned in the pig. And then he fingered the money and went about his business. But when he got out into the road, he could not get it out of his head that he had been cheated out of his pig, and that he was not much better off with fourpence than with nothing. The longer he went and thought of this the angrier he got, and at last he thought to himself,--

"'If I could only play him a pretty trick, I wouldn't care either for the pig or the pence.'

"So he went away and got him a pair of stout thongs and a cat-o'-nine-tails, and then he threw over him a big cloak, and put on a billygoat's beard; and so he went back to the skinflint and said he was from outlandish parts, where he had learnt to be a master builder--for you must know he had heard the old hunks was going to build a house.

"Yes, he would gladly take him as master builder, he said; for thereabouts there were none but home-taught carpenters. So off they went to look at the timber, and it was the finest heart of pine that any one would wish to have in the wall of his house: and even the lad said it was brave timber--he couldn't say otherwise; but in outlandish parts they had got a new fas.h.i.+on, which was far better than the old. They did not take long beams and fit them into the wall, but they cut the beams up into nice small logs, and then they baked them in the sun and fastened them together again; and so they wore both stronger and prettier than an old-fas.h.i.+oned timber building.

"'That's how they build all the houses now-a-days in outlandish parts,'

said the lad.

"'If it must be so, it must,' said the hunks. With that he set all the carpenters and woodmen who were to be found round about to chop and hew all his beams up into small logs.

"'But,' said the lad, 'we still want some big trees--some of the real mast-firs--for our sill-beams; maybe, there are no such big trees in your wood?'

"'Well!' said the man; 'if they're not to be found in my wood, it will be hard to find them anywhere else.'

"And so they strode off to the wood, both of them; and a little way up the hill they came to a big tree.

"'I should think that's big enough,' said the man.