Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/326

304 So the dragons took the golden castle on their backs and went home with it—I fancy they were not long on the way—and set it down side by side with the silvern castle, so that it shone both far and wide.

Now, when the princess of the silvern castle came to her window in the morning and caught sight of it, she was so glad that she sprang over to the golden castle at once; but when she saw her sister lying there, and sleeping as though she were dead, she said to Boots that they would never get life into her before they found the water of life and death, and that stood in two wells on either side of a golden castle which hung in the air, nine hundred miles beyond the world's end, and where the third sister dwelt.

Well, Boots thought there was no help for it; he must go and fetch it, and it was not long before he was on his way. So he travelled far and farther than far through many realms, across wood and field, over fell and firth, along hill and heath, and at last he got to the world's end, and after that he travelled far, far over crags and wastes and high rocks.

"Do you see anything?" asked the ass one day.

"I see naught but heaven and earth," said the lad.

"Do you see anything now?" asked the ass again, when some days were past.

"Yes," said Boots; "now I see something that glimmers very high up, far, far away like a little star."

"It's not so little, for all that," said the ass.

So when they had travelled on a while, the ass asked—

"Do you see anything now?"

"Yes," said Boots; "now it shines like the sun."