"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.
"'Maybe, I shall find the second also,' he said to himself, as he crept
through the key-hole of a second door. There sat a strange princess
combing a hill-ogre's hair who had six heads. So he crept through a
third key-hole still, and there sat the youngest princess, combing a
hill-ogre's hair with nine heads. Then he crept up her leg and stung
her, and so she knew it was the lad who wished to talk to her; and then
she begged leave of the hill-ogre to go out.
"When she came out the lad was himself again, and so he told her she
must ask the hill-ogre whether she would never get away and go home to
her father. Then he turned himself into an ant and sat on her foot, and
so the princess went into the house again, and fell to combing the
hill-ogre's hair.
"So when she had done this awhile, she fell a-thinking.
"'You're forgetting to comb me,' said the hill-ogre. 'What is it you're
thinking of?'
"'Oh, I am doubting whether I shall ever get away from this place, and
home to my father's grange,' said the princess.
"'Nay! nay! that you'll never do!' said the hill-ogre; 'not unless you
can find the grain of sand which lies under the ninth tongue of the
ninth head of the dragon to which your father paid tax; but that no one
will ever find, for if that grain of sand came over the rock all the
hill-ogres would burst, and the rock itself would become a gilded
palace, and the lake green meadows.'
"As soon as the lad heard that he crept out through the keyholes, and
through the crack in the rock, till he got outside. Then he turned
himself into a falcon, and flew whither the dragon lay. Then he hunted
till he found the grain of sand under the ninth tongue of the ninth
head, and flew off with it; but when he came to the lake he got so
tired, so tired, that he had to sink down and perch on a stone by the
strand. And just as he sat there he dozed and nodded for the twinkling
of an eye; and, meantime, the grain of sand fell out of his bill down
among the sand on the shore. So he searched for it three days before he
found it again. But as soon as he had found it he flew straight off to
the steep rock with it, and dropped it down the crack. Then all the
hill-ogres burst, and the rock was rent, and there stood a gilded
castle, which was the grandest castle in all the world; and the lake
became the loveliest fields and the greenest meads any one ever saw.
"So they travelled back to the king's grange, and there arose, as you
may fancy, joy and gladness. The lad and the youngest princess were to
have one another; and they kept up the bridal feast over the whole
kingdom for seven full weeks. And if they did not fare well, I only hope
you may fare better still."