Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/528

 342 head on her body again; put her on a hand-sledge, and so drew her to market. There he set her up with an apple-basket on each arm, and an apple in each hand. By and by came a skipper walking along; he thought she was an apple-woman, and asked if she had apples to sell, and how many he might have for a penny. But the old woman made no answer. So the skipper asked again. No! she hadn't a word to say for herself.

"How many may I have for a penny?" he bawled the third time, but the old dame sat bolt upright, as though she neither saw him nor heard what he said. Then the skipper flew into such a rage that he gave her one under the ear, and so away rolled her head across the marketplace. At that moment, up came Little Peter with a bound; he fell a- weeping and bewailing, and threatened to make the skipper smart for it, for having dealt his old mother her death-blow.

"Dear friend, only hold your tongue about what you know," said the skipper, "and you shall have eight hundred dollars."

And so they made it up.

When Little Peter got home again, he said to Big Peter,—

"Old women fetch a fine price at market to-day; I got eight hundred dollars for mother; just look," and so he showed him the money.

"'Twas well I came to know this," said Big Peter.

Now you must know he had an old stepmother, so he took and killed her out of hand, and strode off to sell her. But when they heard how he went about trying to sell dead bodies, the neighbours were all for handing him over