Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/364

342 youngest Osborn Boots, because he was for ever sitting and grubbing in the ashes. But it so happened that on the Sunday when the king's promise was given out, he was at church too. So when he got home and told the story, his eldest brother, Peter, begged his mother for some food, for he was bent on setting off, and trying his luck, if he couldn't build the ship and win the princess and half the realm. So when he had got his wallet full he strode off from the farm, and on the way he met an old, old man, who was so bent and wretched.

"Whither away?" asked the old man.

"Oh," said Peter, "I'm off to the wood to make a platter for my father, for he doesn't like to eat out of the same dish with us."

"A platter it shall be," said the man; "but what have you in your knapsack?"

"Muck," said Peter.

"Muck it shall be," said the man, and they parted.

So Peter strode on till he came to a grove of oaks, and then he fell to chopping and carpentering; but for all his hewing and all his carpentering he could turn out nothing but platter after platter. So when it got towards mid-day he was going to take a snack, and opened his wallet. But there was not a morsel of food in it; and as he had nothing to eat, and did not get on any better with the carpentering, he got weary of the work, and took his axe and wallet on his back, and strode off home to his mother again.

Next Paul was for setting off to try if he had any luck in shipbuilding, and could win the king's daughter and half the kingdom. He, too, begged his mother