“If you have said this, you shall do it. If you do it, you shall have
the Princess and half the kingdom. If you don’t, you shall lose your
life.”
“I’m sure I never thought or said anything of the kind,” said the lad;
“but if there’s no help for it, I may as well try; but I must have six
days to think about it.”
Yes! he might have six days, but when they were over he must set out.
Then he took a tenpenny nail, a birch-pin, and a waxen taper-end in his
pocket, and rowed across, and walked up and down before the Troll’s
cave, looking stealthily about him. So when the Troll came out, he saw
him at once.
“HO, HO!” roared the Troll; “is it you who took my seven silver ducks?”
“AYE! AYE!” said the lad.
“And it is you who took my bed-quilt, with the gold and silver patches?”
asked the Troll.
“Aye! aye!” said the lad.
So the Troll caught hold of him at once, and took him off into the cave
in the face of the rock.
“Now, daughter dear,” said the Troll, “I’ve caught the fellow who stole
the silver ducks and my bed-quilt with gold and silver patches; put him
into the fattening coop; and when he’s fat we’ll kill him, and make a
feast for our friends.”
She was willing enough, and put him at once into the fattening coop, and
there he stayed eight days, fed on the best, both in meat and drink, and
as much as he could cram. So, when the eight days were over, the Troll
said to his daughter to go down and cut him in his little finger, that
they might see if he were fat. Down she came to the coop.
“Out with your little finger!” she said.
But Boots stuck out his tenpenny-nail, and she cut at it.
“Nay! nay! he’s as hard as iron still,” said the Troll’s daughter, when
she got back to her father; “we can’t take him yet.”
After another eight days the same thing happened, and this time Boots
stuck out his birchen pin.
“Well, he’s a little better,” she said, when she got back to the Troll;
“but still he’ll be as hard as wood to chew.”
But when another eight days were gone, the Troll told his daughter to go
down and see if he wasn’t fat now.
“Out with your little finger,” said the Troll’s daughter, when she
reached the coop, and this time Boots stuck out the taper end.
“Now he’ll do nicely,” she said.
“Will he?” said the Troll. “Well, then, I’ll just set off and ask the
guests; meantime you must kill him, and roast half and boil half.”
So when the Troll had been gone a little while, the daughter began to
sharpen a great long knife.
“Is that what you’re going to kill me with?” asked the lad.
“Yes it is,” said she.
“But it isn’t sharp,” said the lad. “Just let me sharpen it for you, and
then you’ll find it easier work to kill me.”
So she let him have the knife, and he began to rub and sharpen it on the
whetstone.
“Just let me try it on one of your hair plaits; I think it’s about right
now.”
So he got leave to do that; but at the same time that he grasped the
plait of hair, he pulled back her head, and at one gash, cut off the
Troll’s daughter’s head; and half of her he roasted and half of her he
boiled, and served it all up.
After that he dressed himself in her clothes, and sat away in the
corner.
So when the Troll came home with his guests, he called out to his
daughter—for he thought all the time it was his daughter—to come and
take a snack.
“No thank you,” said the lad, “I don’t care for food, I’m so sad and
downcast.”
“Oh!” said the Troll, “if that’s all, you know the cure; take the harp
and play a tune on it.”
“Yes!” said the lad; “but where has it got to; I can’t find it.”
“Why, you know well enough,” said the Troll; “you used it last; where
should it be but over the door yonder?”
The lad did not wait to be told twice; he took down the harp, and went
in and out playing tunes; but, all at once he shoved off the kneading
trough, jumped into it, and rowed off, so that the foam flew around the
trough.
After a while the Troll thought his daughter was a long while gone, and
went out to see what ailed her; and then he saw the lad in the trough,
far, far out on the lake.
“HALLOA! Is it you,” he roared, “that took my seven silver ducks?”
“AYE, AYE!” said the lad.
“Is it you that took my bed-quilt with the gold and silver patches?”
“Yes!” said the lad.
“And now you have taken off my gold harp?” screamed the Troll.
“Yes!” said the lad; “I’ve got it, sure enough.”
“And haven’t I eaten you up after all, then?”
“No, no! ’twas your own daughter you ate,” answered the lad.
But when the Troll heard that, he was so sorry, he burst; and then Boots
rowed back, and took a whole heap of gold and silver with him, as much
as the trough could carry. And so, when he came to the palace with the
gold harp, he got the Princess and half the kingdom as the king had
promised him; and, as for his brothers, he treated them well, for he
thought they had only wished his good when they said what they had said.
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