Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/329

Rh rattled and slammed the gates and doors till the whole castle rang again.

"Huf!" he cried, "what a strong smell of Christian blood there is in here;" and then he stuck his first head inside the door and snuffed up the air.

"I dare say there is," said Boots, "but you've no need to puff and blow as though you were about to burst, for it shan't vex you long;" and as he said that, he cut off all his nine heads. But when he had done that, he got so weary he couldn't keep his eyes open. So he laid him down on the bed by the side of the princess, and all the while she slept both night and day, as though she would never wake again; only at midnight she just woke up for the twinkling of an eye, and then she told him that he had set her free, but she must bide there three years still, and if she didn't come home to him, then he must just come and fetch her.

When the clock began to go towards one next day, Boots woke for the first time, and the first thing he heard was the ass braying and screaming and making a stir, and so he thought he would get up and set off home; but before he went he cut a breadth out of the princess's skirt, and took it away with him. And however it was, he had loitered so long there that the beasts began to wake and stir, and by the time he had mounted his ass they stood in a ring round him, so that he thought it had rather a ghastly look. But the ass said he must sprinkle on them a few drops of the water of death; and he did so, and in a trice they all fell headlong on the spot, and never stirred a limb more.