Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/418

396 "If you go in there you'll get no farther either. Do you hear?"



So the king's son gave his word, and his hand into the bargain, that he wouldn't go in there, and they each went his way. But when the prince got to the inn and heard what music and jollity there was inside, he could not help going in, there were not two words about that; and when he met his brothers, there was such a to-do, that he forgot both the fox and his quest, and the bird and his father. But when he had been there awhile the fox came—for he had ventured into the town after all—and peeped through the door, and winked at the king's son, and said now they must set off. So the prince came to his senses again, and away they started for the house.

And when they had gone awhile they saw a big fell far, far off. Then the fox said—

"Three hundred miles behind yon fell there grows a gilded linden tree with golden leaves, and in that linden roosts the golden bird whose feather that is."

So they travelled thither together; and when the king's son was going off to catch the bird, the fox gave him some fine feathers which he was to wave with his hand to lure the bird down and then it would come