Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/584

 398 wall; no, he couldn't brandish it, he couldn't even lift it up.

"Oh!" said the Princess, "now you must go and take a pull of that flask that hangs by its side; that's what the Troll does every time he goes out to use the sword."

So Halvor took a pull, and in the twinkling of an eye he could brandish the sword like nothing; and now he thought it high time the Troll came; and lo! just then up came the Troll puffing and blowing. Halvor jumped behind the door.

"," said the Troll, as he put his head in at the door," what a smell of Christian man's blood!"

"Ay," said Halvor, "you'll soon know that to your cost," and with that he hewed off all his heads.

Now the Princess was so glad that she was free, she both danced and sang, but then all at once she called her sisters to mind, and so she said,—

"Would my sisters were free too!"

"Where are they?" asked Halvor.

Well, she told him all about it; one was taken away by a Troll to his castle, which lay fifty miles off, and the other by another Troll to his castle, which was fifty miles farther still.

"But now," she said, "you must first help me to get this ugly carcase out of the house."

Yes, Halvor was so strong he swept everything away, and made it all clean and tidy in no time. So they had a good and happy time of it, and next morning he set off at peep of gray dawn; he could take no rest by the way, but ran and walked the whole day. When he first saw the castle he got a little afraid; it was far grander than the