Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/205

Rh popped a little lizard, and ran away so fast along the street that the air whistled after it. There was nothing else in the basket.

"Nay! nay!" cried the lad, "stop a bit, and don't run off so. You know I have bought you."

"Stick me in the tail—stick me in the tail!" bawled the lizard.

Well, the lad was not slow in running after it and sticking his knife into its tail just as it was crawling into a hole in the wall, and that very minute it was turned into a young man as fine and handsome as the grandest prince, and a prince he was indeed.

"Now you have saved me," said the prince, "for that old hag with whom you and your master have dealt is a witch, and me she has changed into a lizard, and my brother and sister into a puppy and kitten."

"A pretty story!" said the lad.

"Yes," said the prince; "and now she was on her way to cast us into the fjord and kill us; but if any one came and wanted to buy us she must sell us for fourpence each; that was settled, and that was all my father could do. Now you must come home to him and get the meed for what you have done."

"I dare say," said the lad, "it's a long way off?"

"Oh," said the prince, "not so far at all. There it is yonder," he said, as he pointed to a great hill in the distance.

So they set off as fast as they could, but, as was to be weened, it was farther off than it looked, and so they did not reach the hill till far on in the night.

Then the prince began to knock and knock.

"," said some one inside the hill,