wound her golden reel. And all went as on the preceding day. The
princess asked what she wanted for the reel, and the maiden answered
that she would sell it neither for gold nor for money; but if she might
speak that night to the prince, then she would give the reel to the
princess. Yet when the maiden came to the prince, he was again fast
asleep, and no matter how much she wept and wailed, and cried and shook,
she could not wake him. But as soon as day dawned, and it grew bright,
the princess with the long nose came and drove her out. And that day the
maiden again seated herself beneath the windows of the castle, and spun
with her golden spindle; and, of course, the princess with the long nose
wanted to have that, too. She opened the window, and asked what she
wanted for the golden spindle. The maiden replied, as she had twice
before, that she would sell the spindle neither for gold nor money; but
that the princess could have it if she might speak to the prince again
that night. Yes, that she was welcome to do, said the princess, and took
the golden spindle. Now it happened that some Christians, who were
captives in the castle, and quartered in a room beside that of the
prince, had heard a woman weeping and wailing pitifully in the prince's
room for the past two nights. So they told the prince. And that evening
when the princess came to him with his night-cap, the prince pretended
to drink it; but instead poured it out behind his back, for he could
well imagine that she had put a sleeping-powder into the cup. Then, when
the maiden came in, the prince was awake, and she had to tell him just
how she had found the castle.
"You have come just in the nick of time," said he, "for to-morrow I am
to marry the princess; but I do not want the monster with the nose at
all, and you are the only person who can save me. I will say that first
I wish to see whether my bride is a capable housewife, and demand that
she wash the three drops of tallow from my shirt. She will naturally
agree to this, for she does not know that you made the spots, for only
Christian hands can wash them out again, but not the hands of this pack
of trolls. Then I will say I will marry none other than the maiden who
can wash out the spots, and ask you to do so," said the prince. And then
both rejoiced and were happy beyond measure.
But on the following day, when the wedding was to take place, the prince
said: "First I would like to see what my bride can do!" Yes, that was no
more than right, said his mother-in-law. "I have a very handsome shirt,"
continued the prince, "which I would like to wear at the wedding. But
there are three tallow-spots on it, and they must first be washed out.
And I have made a vow to marry none other than the woman who can do
this. So if my bride cannot manage to do it, then she is worthless."
Well, that would not be much of a task, said the women, and agreed to
the proposal. And the princess with the long nose at once began to wash.
She washed with all her might and main, and took the greatest pains, but
the longer she washed and rubbed, the larger grew the spots.
"O, you don't know how to wash!" said her mother, the old troll-wife.
"Just give it to me!" But no sooner had she taken the shirt in her hand,
than it began to look worse, and the more she washed and rubbed, the
larger and blacker grew the spots. Then the other troll-women had to
come and wash; but the longer they washed the shirt the uglier it grew,
and finally it looked as though it had been hanging in the smokestack.
"Why, all of you are worthless!" said the prince. "Outside the window
sits a beggar-girl. I'm sure she is a better washer-woman than all of
you put together. You, girl, come in here!" he cried out of the window;
and when the maiden came in he said: "Do you think you can wash this
shirt clean for me?"
"I do not know," answered the maiden, "but I will try." And no more had
she dipped the shirt in the water than it turned as white as newly
fallen snow, yes, even whiter.
"Indeed, and you are the one I want!" said the prince.
Then the old troll-woman grew so angry that she burst in two, and the
princess with the long nose and the rest of the troll-pack probably
burst in two as well, for I never heard anything more of them. The
prince and his bride then freed all the Christians who had been kept
captive in the castle, and packed up as much gold and silver as they
could possibly take with them, and went far away from the castle that
lies East of the sun and West of the moon.
NOTE
"East of the Sun and West of the Moon" (Asbjoernsen and Moe,
N.F.E., p. 200, No. 41). The maiden's journeys with the winds are
here recounted in a colorful and imaginative manner, and the
motive of the washing out of the three drops of tallow is a
delicate and ingenious development of the idea of the fateful
candle.
XXIII
MURMUR GOOSE-EGG
Once upon a time there were five women who were standing in a field,
mowing. Heaven had not given a single one of them a child, and each of
them wanted to have one. And suddenly they saw a goose-egg of quite
unheard-of size, well-nigh as large as a man's head. "I saw it first,"
said the one. "I saw it at the same time that you did," insisted
another. "But I want it, for I saw it first of all," maintained a third.
And thus they went on, and fought so about the egg that they nearly came
to blows. Finally they agreed that it should belong to all five of them,
and that all of them should sit on it, as a goose would do, and hatch
out the little gosling. The first remained sitting on the egg for eight
days, and hatched, and did not move or do a thing; and during this time
the rest had to feed her and themselves as well. One of them grew angry
because of this and scolded.
"You did not crawl out of the egg either before you could cry peep!"
said the one who was sitting on the egg and hatching. "Yet I almost
believe that a human child is going to slip out of the egg, for
something is murmuring inside it without ever stopping: 'Herring and
mush, porridge and milk,'" said she. "And now you can sit on it for
eight days, while we bring you food."
When the fifth day of the eight had passed, it was plain to her that
there was a child in the egg, which kept on calling: "Herring and mush,
porridge and milk," and so she punched a hole in the egg, and instead of
a gosling out came a child, and it was quite disgustingly homely, with
a big head and a small body, and no sooner had it crawled out than it
began to cry: "Herring and mush, porridge and milk!" So they named the
child Murmur Goose-Egg.
In spite of the child's homeliness, the women at first took a great deal
of pleasure in him; but before long he grew so greedy that he devoured
everything they had. When they cooked a dish of mush or a potful of
porridge that was to do for all six of them, the child swallowed it all
by himself. So they did not want to keep him any longer. "I have not had
a single full meal since the changling crawled out," said one of them;
and when Murmur Goose-Egg heard that, and the rest agreed, he said that
he would gladly go his own gait, for "if they had no need of him, then
he had no need of them," and with that he went off. Finally he came to a
farmstead that lay in a rocky section, and asked for work. Yes, they
needed a workman, and the master told him to gather up the stones in the
field. Then Murmur Goose-Egg gathered up the stones in the field; he
picked up some that were so large that a number of horses could not have
dragged them, and large and small, one and all, he put them in his
pocket. Before long he had finished his work, and wanted to know what he
was to do next.
"You have picked up the stones in the field?" said his master. "You
cannot possibly have finished before you have really begun!"
But Murmur Goose-Egg emptied his pockets, and threw the stones on a
pile. Then his master saw that he had finished his work, and that one
would have to handle such a strong fellow with kid gloves. So he told
him to come in and eat. That suited Murmur Goose-Egg, and he ate up
everything that was to have supplied the master and his family, and the
help, and then he was only half satisfied.
He was really a splendid worker; but a dangerous eater, like a
bottomless cask, said the peasant. "Such a serving-man could eat up a
poor peasant, house and ground, before he noticed it," said he. He had
no more work for him, and the best thing to do would be to go to the
king's castle.
So Murmur Goose-Egg went to the king, and was at once given a place,
and there was enough to eat and drink in the castle. He was to be the
errand-boy, and help the maids fetch wood and water, and do other odd
jobs. So he asked what he was to do first.
For the time being he could chop fire-wood, said they. So Murmur
Goose-Egg began to chop fire-wood, and hewed to the line in such fashion
that the chips fairly flew. Before long he had chopped up all that there
was, kindling wood and building wood, beams and boards, and when he was
through with it, he came and asked what he was to do now.
"You can finish chopping the fire-wood," said they.
"There is none left," said Murmur Goose-Egg.
That could not be possible, said the superintendent, and looked into
the wood-bin. Yes, indeed, Murmur Goose-Egg had chopped up everything,
large and small, beams and boards. That was very bad, and therefore
the superintendent said that Murmur Goose-Egg should have nothing to
eat until he had chopped down just as much wood in the forest as he
had just chopped up for fire-wood.
Then Murmur Goose-Egg went into the smithy, and had the smith make an
iron ax of five hundred-weights. With that he went into the forest and
began to chop. He chopped down big pine and fir trees, as thick as
masts, and all that he found on the king's ground, as well as what he
found on that of his neighbors. But he cut off neither the branches nor
the tree-tops, so that all lay there as though felled by the storm. Then
he loaded a sizable stack on the sled, and put to the horses. But they
could not move the load from the spot, and when he took them by the
heads, in order to pull them forward, he tore off their heads. So he
unharnessed them, and left them lying in the field, and put himself to
the sled, and went off alone with the load. When he came to the king's
castle, there stood the king with the master carpenter in the entrance,
and they were ready to give him a warm reception, because of the
destruction he had wrought in the forest. For the master carpenter had
been there and seen the havoc he had made. But when Murmur Goose-Egg
came along with half the forest, the king grew frightened as well as
angry, and he thought that if Murmur was so strong, it would be best to
handle him with care.
"Why, you are a splendid workman," said the king, "but tell me, how much
do you really eat at once," he continued, "for I am sure you are
hungry?"
If he were to have enough porridge, they would have to take twelve tons
of meal to make it; but after he had eaten that, then he could wait a
while, said Murmur Goose-Egg.
It took some time before so much porridge could be prepared, and in the
meantime Murmur was to carry wood into the kitchen. So he piled the
whole load of wood on a sled, but when he drove it through the door, he
did not go to work about it very gently. The house nearly broke from
its joints, and he well-nigh tore down the entire castle. When at last
dinner was ready, they sent him out into the field, to call the help. He
called so loudly that hill and vale reechoed the sound. But still the
people did not come quick enough to suit him. So he picked a quarrel
with them, and killed twelve.
"You kill twelve of my people, and you eat for twelve times twelve of
them, but how many men's work can you do?" asked the king.
"I do the work of twelve times twelve, too," said Murmur. When he had
eaten, he was to go to the barn and thresh. So he pulled the beam out of
the roof-tree, and made a flail out of it, and when the roof threatened
to fall in, he took a pine-tree with all its boughs and branches, and
set it up in place of the roof-beam. Then he threshed corn and hay and
straw, all together, and it seemed as though a cloud hung over the royal
castle.
When Murmur Goose-Egg had nearly finished threshing, the enemy broke
into the land, and war began. Then the king told him to gather people
about him, and go to meet the foe, and do battle with him, for he
thought the enemy would probably kill him.
No, said Murmur Goose-Egg, he did not want to have the king's people
killed, he would see that he dealt with the enemy himself.
All the better, thought the king, then I am sure to get rid of him. But
he would need a proper club, said Murmur.
So they sent to the smith, and he forged a club of two hundred-weights.
That would only do for a nut-cracker, said Murmur Goose-Egg. So he
forged another that weighed six hundred-weights, and that would do to
hammer shoes with, said Murmur Goose-Egg. But the smith told him that he
and all his workmen together could not forge a larger one.
Then Murmur Goose-Egg went into the smithy himself, and forged himself
a club of thirty hundred-weights, and it would have taken a hundred men
just to turn it around on the anvil. This might do at a pinch, said
Murmur. Then he wanted a knapsack with provisions. It was sewn together
out of fifteen ox-skins, and stuffed full of provisions, and then Murmur
wandered down the hill with the knapsack on his back, and the club over
his shoulder.
When he came near enough for the soldiers to see him, they sent to ask
whether he had a mind to attack them.
"Just wait until I have eaten," said Murmur, and sat him down behind his
knapsack to eat. But the enemy would not wait, and began to fire at him.
And it fairly rained and hailed musket-balls all around Murmur.
"I don't care a fig for these blueberries," said Murmur Goose-Egg, and
feasted on quite at ease. Neither lead nor iron could wound him, and his
knapsack stood before him, and caught the bullets like a wall.
Then the enemy began to throw bombs at him, and shoot at him with
cannon. He hardly moved when he was struck. "O, that's of no account!"
said he.
But then a bomb flew into his wind-pipe. "Faugh!" said he, and spat it
out again, and then came a chain-bullet and fell into his butter-plate,
and another tore away the bit of bread from between his fingers.
Then he grew angry, stood up, took his club, pounded the ground with it,
and asked whether they wanted to take the food from his mouth with the
blueberries they were blowing out at him from their clumsy blow-pipes.
Then he struck a few more blows, so that the hills and valleys round
about trembled, and all the enemy flew up into the air like chaff, and
that was the end of the war.
When Murmur came back and asked for more work, the king was at a loss,
for he had felt sure that now he was rid of him. So he knew of nothing
better to do than to send him to the devil's place.
"Now you can go to the devil, and fetch the tribute from him," said the
king. Murmur Goose-Egg went off with his knapsack on his back, and his
club over his shoulder. He had soon reached the right spot; but when he
got there the devil was away at a trial. There was no one home but his
grandmother, and she said she had never yet heard anything about a
tribute, and that he was to come back some other time.
"Yes, indeed, come again to-morrow," said he. "I know that old excuse!"
But since he was there, he would stay there, for he had to take home the
tribute, and he had plenty of time to wait. But when he had eaten all
his provisions, he grew weary, and again demanded the tribute from the
grandmother.
"You will get nothing from me, and that's as flat as the old fir-tree
outside is fast," said the devil's grandmother. The fir-tree stood in
front of the gate to the devil's place, and was so large that fifteen
men could hardly girdle it with their arms. But Murmur climbed up into
its top and bent and shook it to and fro as though it were a willow
wand, and then asked the devil's grandmother once more whether she would
now pay him the tribute.
[Illustration: "THERE MURMUR JUMPED FROM ONE MOUNTAIN-TOP TO ANOTHER."
--_Page 189_]
So she did not dare to refuse any longer, and brought out as much money
as he could possibly carry in his knapsack. Then he set out for home
with the tribute, and now no sooner had he gone than the devil came
home, and when he learned that Murmur had taken along a big bag of
money, he first beat his grandmother, and then hurried after Murmur.
And he soon caught up to him, for he ran over sticks and stones, and
sometimes flew in between; while Murmur had to stick to the highway with
his heavy knapsack. But with the devil at his heels, he began to run as
fast as he could, and stretched out the club behind him, to keep the
devil from coming to close quarters. And thus they ran along, one behind
the other; while Murmur held the shaft and the devil the end of the
club, until they reached a deep valley. There Murmur jumped from one
mountain-top to another, and the devil followed him so hotly that he ran
into the club, fell down into the valley and broke his foot--and there
he lay.
"There's your tribute!" said Murmur Goose-Egg, when he had reached the
royal castle, and he flung down the knapsack full of money before the
king, so that the whole castle tottered. The king thanked him kindly,
and promised him a good reward, and a good character, if he wanted it;
but Murmur only wanted more work to do.
"What shall I do now?" he asked. The king reflected for a while, and
then he said Murmur should travel to the hill-troll, who had robbed him
of the sword of his ancestors. He lived in a castle by the sea, where
no one ventured to go.
Murmur was given a few cart-loads of provisions in his big knapsack, and
once more set out. Long he wandered, though, over field and wood, over
hills and deep valleys, till he came to a great mountain where the troll
lived who had robbed the king of the sword.
But the troll was not out in the open, and the mountain was closed, so
Murmur could not get it. So he joined a party of stone-breakers, who
were working at a mountainside, and worked along with them. They had
never had such a helper, for Murmur hewed away at the rocks till they
burst, and stone bowlders as large as houses came rolling down. But when
he was about to rest and eat up the first cart-load of his provisions,
it had already been eaten up. "I have a good appetite myself," said
Murmur, "but whoever got hold of it has an even better one, for he has
eaten up the bones as well!"
Thus it went the first day, and the second was no better. On the third
day he went to work again, and took along the third cart-load, lay down
behind it, and pretended to be sleeping.
Then a troll with seven heads came out of the hill, began to smack his
lips, and eat of his provisions.
"Now the table is set, so now I am going to eat," said he.
"First we'll see about that," said Murmur, and hewed away at the troll
so that the heads flew from his body.
Then he went into the hill out of which the troll had come, and inside
stood a horse eating out of a barrel of glowing ashes, while behind him
stood a barrel filled with oats.
"Why don't you eat out of the barrel of oats?" asked Murmur Goose-Egg.
"Because I cannot turn around," said the horse.
"I will turn you around," said Murmur Goose-Egg.
"Tear my head off instead," pleaded the horse.
Murmur did so, and then the horse turned into a fine-looking man. He
said that he had been enchanted, and turned into a horse by the troll.
Then he helped Murmur look for the sword, which the troll had hidden
under the bed. But in the bed lay the troll's grandmother, and she was
snoring.
They went home by water, and just as they sailed off the old troll
grandmother came after them; but she could not get at them, hence she
commenced to drink, so that the water went down and grew lower. But at
last she could not drink up the whole sea, and so she burst.
When they came ashore, Murmur sent to the king, and had him told to have
the sword fetched; but though the king sent four horses, they could not
move it from the spot. He sent eight, he sent twelve, but the sword
remained where it was, and could not be moved from the spot by any
means. Then Murmur Goose-Egg took it up, and carried it alone.
The king could not believe his eyes when he saw Murmur once more; but
he was very friendly and promised him gold and green forests. But when
Murmur asked for more work, he told him to travel to his troll's castle,
where no one dared go, and to remain there until he had built a bridge
across the sound, so that people could cross. If he could do that, he
would reward him well, yes, he would even give him his daughter, said
the king. He would attend to it, said Murmur.
Yet no human being had ever returned thence alive; all who had gotten
so far, lay on the ground dead, and crushed to a jelly, and the king
thought, when sending him there, that he would never see him again.
But Murmur set out. He took with him his knapsack full of provisions,
and a properly turned and twisted block of pine-wood, as well as an ax,
a wedge and some wooden chips.
When he reached the sound, the river was full of drifting ice, and it
roared like a waterfall. But he planted his legs firmly on the ground,
and waded along until he got across. When he had warmed himself and
satisfied his hunger, he wanted to sleep; but a tumult and rumbling
started, as though the whole castle were to be turned upside down. The
gate flew wide open, and Murmur saw nothing but a pair of yawning jaws
that reached from the threshold to the top of the door.
"Let's see who you may be? Perhaps you are an old friend of mine," said
Murmur. And sure enough, it was Master Devil. Then they played cards
together. The devil would gladly have won back some of the tribute
Murmur had forced from his grandmother for the king. Yet, no matter how
he played, Murmur always won; for he made a cross on the cards. And
after he had won all the devil had with him, the latter had to give him
some of the gold and silver that was in the castle.
In the midst of their game the fire went out, so that they could no
longer tell the cards apart.
"Now we must split wood," said Murmur. He hewed into the block of
pine-wood with his ax, and drove in the wedge, but the tree-stump was
tough, and would not split at once, though Murmur gave himself all
manner of pains.
"You are supposed to be strong," he said to the devil. "Spit on your
hands, slap in your claws here, and pull the block apart, so that I can
see what you can do!"
The devil obediently thrust both hands into the split, and tore and
clawed with all his might; but suddenly Murmur Goose-Egg knocked out the
wedge, and there the devil was caught in a vice, while Murmur belabored
his back with the ax. The devil wailed, and begged Murmur to let him go;
but Murmur would hear nothing of it until he had promised never to come
back and make a nuisance of himself again. Besides that, he had to
promise to build a bridge over the sound, on which one could go back and
forth at all seasons of the year. And the bridge was to be completed
immediately after the breaking up of the ice-drift.
"Alas!" said the devil, but there was nothing for it but to promise if
he wished to go free. Yet he made one condition, that he was to have the
first soul that crossed the bridge as sound-toll.
He could have it, said Murmur. Then he let the devil out, and he ran
straight home. But Murmur lay down and slept until far into the
following day.
Then the king came to see whether Murmur Goose-Egg were lying crushed
on the ground, or had merely been badly beaten. He had to wade through
piles of money before he could reach the bed. The money was stacked up
high along the walls in heaps and in bags, and Murmur lay in the bed and
snored.
"May heaven help me and my daughter!" cried the king, when he saw that
Murmur Goose-Egg was in the best of health. Yes, and no one could deny
that everything had been well and thoroughly done, said the king; but
there could be no talk of marriage as long as the bridge had not been
built.
Then one day the bridge was finished; and on it stood the devil, ready
to collect the toll promised him.
Murmur Goose-Egg wanted the king to be the first to try the bridge with
him; but the king had no mind to do so, therefore Murmur himself mounted
a horse, and swung up the fat dairy-maid from the castle before him on
the saddle-bow--she looked almost like a gigantic block of wood--and
dashed across the bridge with her so that the planks fairly thundered.
"Where is my sound-toll? Where is the soul?" cried the devil. "Sitting
in this block of wood! If you want her, you must spit on your hands and
catch hold of her," said Murmur Goose-Egg. "No, thank you! If she does
not catch hold of me, then I'll certainly not catch hold of her," said
the devil. "You caught me in a vice once, but you can't fool me a second
time," said he, and flew straight home to his grandmother, and since
then nothing more has been heard or seen of him.