Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 4).djvu/316

 "Look at my lamb, how fat it is," said a voice in a hill.

"Look at that gun of Peer's, how high it is," said a voice in another hill, just as Peer took aim and shot the fox. He skinned the fox and took the skin with him, and when he came to the sæter he put the heads on the wall outside, with their jaws gaping. Then he lighted a fire and put a pot on to boil some soup, but the chimney smoked so terribly that he could scarcely keep his eyes open, and so he had to set wide a small window. Suddenly a Troll came and poked his nose in through the window; it was so long that it reached across the room to the fireplace.

"Here's a proper snout for you to see," said the Troll.

"And here's proper soup for you to taste," said Peer Gynt; and he poured the whole potful of soup over the Troll's nose. The Troll ran away howling; but in all the hills around there was jeering and laughing and voices shouting—

"Soup-snout Gyri! Soup-snout Gyri!"

All was quiet now for a while; but before long there was a great noise and hubbub outside again. Peer looked out and saw that there was a cart there, drawn by bears. They hoisted up the Troll-Monster, and carted him away into the mountain. Just then a bucket of water came down the chimney and put out the fire, so that Peer was left in the dark. Then a jeering and laughing began in all the corners of the room, and a voice said—

"It'll go no better with Peer now than with the sæter-girls at Vala."

Peer made up the fire again, took his dogs with him, shut up the house, and set off northward to the Vala sæter, where the three girls were. When he had