Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/231

 Rh put on his skin cloak, and his false beard, and reached the cabin before her. When she came home, he was busy nursing the baby.

"Well, you have made me do what it went against my heart to do. This is the first time I ever stole, and this shall be the last;" and with that she told him how it had gone with her, and what the Prince had said.

A few days after Hacon Grizzlebeard came home at even and said—

"To-morrow I must stay at home and mind the babe, for they are going to kill a pig at the palace, and you must help to make the sausages."

"I make sausages!" said the Princess; "I can't do any such thing. I have eaten sausages often enough; but as to making them, I never made one in my life."

Well, there was no help for it; the Prince had said it, and go she must. As for not knowing how, she was only to do what the others did, and at the same time Hacon bade her steal some sausages for him.

"Nay, but I can't steal them," she said; "you know how it went last time."

"Well, you can learn to steal; who knows but you may have better luck next time?" said Hacon Grizzlebeard.

When she was well on her way, Hacon ran by a short cut, reached the palace long before her, threw off his skin cloak and false beard, and stood in the kitchen with his royal robes before she came in. So the Princess stood by when the pig was killed, and made sausages with the rest, and did as Hacon bade her, and stuffed her pockets full of sausages. But when she was about to go home at even, the Prince said—