Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/325

Rh of horseshoe brads and nails, and set fire to them all, and so we shall be rid of it."

So after a long, long time they came up to where the castle hung in the air, but the worm lay underneath it and stopped the way. So the lad gave the dragons a good meal of beeves and salted swine, that they might help him, and they spread over the worm heaps of boughs and wood, and laid between them layers of nails and brads, till they had used up the three hundred chests; and when it was all done, they set fire to the pile and burned up the worm alive in a fire at white heat.

So when they had done with him, one dragon flew under the castle and lifted it up, and the two others went up high, high into the air, and unloosed the links and hooks by which it hung, and so they lowered it down and set it on the ground. When that was done Boots went inside, and there it was, grander far than in the silvern castle, but he could see no folk till he came to the innermost room, and there lay a princess on a bed of gold. She slept so sound, as though she were dead; but she was not, though he was not able to wake her up, for her face was as red and white as milk and blood. And just as Boots stood there gazing at her, back came the Troll tearing along. As soon as he put his first head through the door he screamed out—

"Hu! what a smell of Christian blood there is in here."

"Maybe," said Boots, "but you've no need to smell and snort about that; you shan't suffer long from it."

And with that he cut off all his heads, as though they stood on a kail-stalk.