‘That may be,’ said the Bull; so they rushed at each other, and fought,
and it was such a dreadful sight that the King’s daughter very nearly
swooned. The Bull gored the Troll’s eyes out and ran his horns right
through him, but the Troll fought as well as he did, and when the Bull
had gored one head to death the other heads breathed life into it
again, so it was a whole week before the Bull was able to kill him. But
then he himself was so worn out and weak that he could not move at all.
His body was all one wound, and he could not even so much as tell the
King’s daughter to take the horn of ointment out of the Troll’s belt
and rub him with it. She did this without being told; so he came to
himself again, but he had to lie there for three weeks and rest before
he was in a state to move.
Then they journeyed onwards by degrees, for the Bull said that they had
still a little farther to go, and in this way they crossed many high
hills and thick woods. This lasted for a while, and then they came upon
the fells.
‘Do you see anything?’ asked the Bull.
‘No, I see nothing but the sky above and the wild fell side,’ said the
King’s daughter.
Then they climbed up higher, and the fell grew more level, so that they
could see farther around them.
‘Do you see anything now?’ said the Bull.
‘Yes, I see a small castle, far, far away,’ said the Princess.
‘It is not so very little after all,’ said the Bull.
After a long, long time they came to a high hill, where there was a
precipitous wall of rock.
‘Do you see nothing now?’ said the Bull.
‘Yes, now I see the castle quite near, and now it is much, much
larger,’ said the King’s daughter.
‘Thither shall you go,’ said the Bull; ‘immediately below the castle
there is a pig-sty, where you shall dwell. When you get there, you will
find a wooden gown which you are to put on, and then go to the castle
and say that you are called Kari Woodengown, and that you are seeking a
place. But now you must take out your little knife and cut off my head
with it, and then you must flay me and roll up my hide and put it there
under the rock, and beneath the hide you must lay the copper leaf, and
the silver leaf, and the golden apple. Close beside the rock a stick is
standing, and when you want me for anything you have only to knock at
the wall of rock with that.’
At first she would not do it, but when the Bull said that this was the
only reward that he would have for what he had done for her, she could
do no otherwise. So though she thought it very cruel, she slaved on and
cut at the great animal with the knife till she had cut off his head
and hide, and then she folded up the hide and laid it beneath the
mountain wall, and put the copper leaf, and the silver leaf, and the
golden apple inside it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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