Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/159

IV.] Olaf was in sad trouble about his promise. So he walked out into a wood to think, and there he heard the Troll's wife hushing her child inside a hill, and saying to it, "To-morrow, Wind and Weather, your father, will come home in the morning, and bring with him the sun and the moon, or St. Olaf himself." Then St. Olaf knew what to do. He went home, and there was the church, all ready except the very top of the weather-cock, and the Troll was just putting the finishing-touch to that. Then St. Olaf called out to him, "Oh! ho! Wind and Weather, you have set the spire crooked!" And then, with a great noise, the Troll fell down from the steeple and broke into pieces, and every piece was a flint-stone.

The same thing is told in the German story of Rumpelstiltskin. A maiden is ordered by a King to spin a roomful of straw into gold, or else she is to die. A Dwarf appears, she promises him her necklace, and he does the task for her. Next day she has to spin a larger roomful of straw into gold. She gives the Dwarf the ring off her finger, and he does this task also. Next day she is set to work at a larger room, and then, when the Dwarf comes, she has