Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/443

Rh p. 9; Zingerle, p. 12; Pröhle's Kindermärchen, No. 47; in Swedish in Cavallius, pp. 1-8; in Norwegian in Asbjörnsen, p. 40; in Danish in Etlar, p. 29, in the tale of a valiant young shoemaker's apprentice. Nyerup describes the rhymed treatment of this version in his work on the Danish Volksbücher (Almindelig Morskabsläsning i Dannemark og Norge. Kiobenhavn, 1816), pp. 241, 242. The hero strikes fifteen flies dead at one blow with his garter, the renown of which great deed is so spread abroad, that a prince takes him into his service, that he may deliver his country from a wild boar. The animal devours a fruit which causes sleep, and is easily killed by the shoemaker. He then overcomes the unicorn, and lastly a bear, which he shuts up in a brickmaker's oven. There is likewise the following characteristic story in Dutch, from a book on folk-lore published in Amsterdam. Van Kleyn Kobisje, alias Koningh sonder Onderzaten, p. 7. 14. (King without subjects). It is to be found also as a supplement, in an almost identical form in another Dutch book on folk-lore; Clement Marot, pp. 132-133, under the title of Hans Onversagt. "Little Kobisje was sitting by his cutting-board peeling an apple, and left the parings lying on it. He made a fly-killer, and when the flies settled on the apple-parings to eat them; he killed seven at one stroke. He leapt up from the table, imagining that he had performed a valiant deed, and had thus become a great man; sold all he had, and caused a pretty shield to be made for himself on which he had inscribed, "My name is young Kobis the dauntless, I slew seven at one stroke." Then he went to a far-off country where a King ruled; placed his shield on his breast, went behind the King's palace, and lay down on a high hill, where he knew he was accustomed to pass.

At length the sun began to shine brightly, and the King could not imagine what it was that was glittering so, and immediately sent a nobleman thither. When the nobleman came up, he was alarmed when he read, "My name is young Kobis, the Dauntless; I slew seven at one blow." He went back and told the King what he had seen, who instantly sent two or three companies of soldiers thither with the nobleman, to give him courage, and conduct the stranger to court with the respect and honour due to such a knight. They went thither as the King had ordered, and approached and examined him, but none of them would be the first to speak to him. At last one of the crowd was bold enough to take a spear and touch the sole of his shoe with it. Up he sprang with great vigour, and they fell on their knees, and entreated him to be pleased to go to the King, which he did. When he came to the King, he was treated with great respect. Meanwhile he was informed that he might become the King's son-in-law, but that there were three difficult things which he must