Part 20 (2/2)

And before long there it stood, as you may believe. And it did not take long, either, before the king, together with the queen and the princess, came to look at the new castle. The youth stood there with his broom again, and swept and cleaned. ”Now the castle is in apple-pie order. Do I get her now?” he cried.

”That's all very fine,” declared the king, ”just come in and we'll talk it over,” said he, for he had noticed that the youth knew a thing or two, and he was thinking over how he might get rid of him. The king went on ahead, and after him the queen, and then went the princess, just in advance of the youth. Then he at once wished to be the handsomest man in the world, and so he was, that very minute. When the princess saw what a splendid figure he suddenly cut, she nudged the queen, who in turn nudged the king, and after they had stared at him long enough, they at last realized that the youth was more than he had at first appeared to be, in his rags. So they decided that the princess was to treat him nicely, in order to find out how matters really stood, and the princess was as sweet and amiable as sugar-bread, and flattered the youth, and said that she could not do without him, night or day. And when it came toward the end of the first evening, she said: ”Since you and I are to be married in any case, I am sure you will have no secrets from me, and you will not want to hide from me how you managed to do all these fine things.”

”O, yes,” said the youth. ”You shall know about it, but first of all let us be married; before that nothing counts!”

The following evening the princess pretended to be quite unhappy. She was well aware, said she, that he did not attach much importance to her love, when he would not even tell her what she wanted so much to know.

If he could not even oblige her in such a small matter, his love could not amount to a great deal. Then the youth fell into despair, and to make up with her again, he told her everything. She lost no time, and let the king and queen know all about it. Thereupon they agreed as to how they would go about getting the youth's ring away from him, and then, thought they, it would not really be hard to get rid of him.

In the evening the princess came with a sleeping potion, and said she wanted to give her lover a drink that would increase his love for her, since it was plain he did not love her enough. The youth suspected nothing, and drank, and at once fell so fast asleep that they could have pulled down the house over his head. Then the princess drew the ring from his finger, put it on herself, and wished the youth might be lying on the garbage-pile in the street, just as tattered and torn as he had come to them, and in his place she wanted the handsomest prince in the world. And that very minute everything happened just as she wished.

After a time the youth woke up, out on the garbage-pile, and at first thought he was dreaming: but when he saw the ring was gone, he understood how it all had happened, and fell into such despair that he got up and wanted to jump right into the sea.

But then he met the cat his master had bought for him. ”Where are you going?” she asked. ”To throw myself into the sea and drown,” was the youth's reply.

”Do not do so on any account,” said the cat. ”You will get your ring again.”

”Yes, if that were so, then ...” said the youth.

The cat ran away. Suddenly a rat crossed her path. ”Now I will pounce on you!” said the cat. ”O do not do that,” said the rat, ”you shall have the ring again!”

”Well, if that is so, then ...” said the cat.

When the folk at the castle had gone to bed, the rat crept around, and sniffed and spied out the room of the prince and princess; and at last he found a little hole through which he crawled. Then he heard the prince and princess talking to each other, and saw that the prince was wearing the ring on his finger. Before she went, the princess said: ”Good night. And see that you take good care of the ring, my dearest!”

”Pooh! no one will come in through the walls for the sake of a ring,”

said the prince, ”but if you think it is not safe enough on my hand, why, I can put it in my mouth.”

After a time he lay down on his back, and prepared to go to sleep. But just then the ring slipped down his throat, and he had to cough, so that the ring flew out and rolled along the ground. Swis.h.!.+--the rat had caught it, and crept out with it to the cat, who was waiting at the rat-hole. But in the meantime the king had caught the youth, and had had him put in a great tower and condemned to death, because he had made a mock of his daughter--so the king said. And the youth was to sit in the tower until he was beheaded. But the cat kept prowling around the tower all the time, trying to sneak in with the ring. And then an eagle came along, caught her up in his claws and flew across the sea with her. And suddenly a hawk appeared, and flung himself on the eagle, and the eagle let the cat fall into the sea. When she felt the water, she grew afraid, let the ring fall, and swam to land. No sooner had she shaken the water from her fur than she met the dog whom the youth's master had bought for him.

”Well, what am I to do now?” said the cat, and wept and lamented. ”The ring is gone, and they want to murder the youth.” ”That I do not know,”

said the dog, ”but what I do know is that I have the very worst kind of an ache in my stomach,” said he.

”There you have it. You have surely over-eaten,” said the cat.

”I never eat more than I need,” said the dog, ”and just now I have eaten nothing at all, save a dead fish that was left here by the ebb-tide.”

”Could the fish have swallowed the ring?” asked the cat. ”And must you, also, lose your life, because you cannot digest gold?”

”That may well be the case,” said the dog. ”But then it would be best if I died at once, for then the youth might still be saved.”

”O, that is not necessary!” said the rat--who was there, too--”I do not need a very large opening through which to crawl, and if the ring is really there, I am sure I can find it.” So the rat slipped down into the dog, and before very long he came out again with the ring. And then the cat made her way to the tower, and clawed her way up till she found a hole through which she could thrust her paw, and thus brought back the ring to the youth.

No sooner was it on his finger than he wished that the tower might break down, and that very moment he was standing just before the tower-gate, and reviling the king and the queen and the king's daughter as though they were the lowest of the low. The king hastily called together his army, and told it to surround the tower, and take the youth prisoner, dead or alive. But the youth only wished the whole army might be sticking up to their necks in the big swamp in the hills, and there they had trouble enough getting out--those among them who did not stick fast.

Then he went right on reviling where he had stopped, and finally, when he had told them all just what he thought of them, he wished that the king, the queen and the king's daughter might sit for the rest of their lives in the tower into which they had thrust him. And when they were sitting there, he took possession of the king's land and country on his own account. Then the dog changed into a prince, and the cat into a princess, and he made the latter his wife, and they were married and celebrated their wedding long and profusely.

NOTE

In ”The Youth Who Was to Serve Three Years Without Pay”

(Asbjornsen, N.F.E., No. 63, p. 8. From Gudbrandsdal) we have the tale of a magic ring, whose possessor is robbed of it by a faithless woman, and which is brought back to him by faithful animals, after various vicissitudes.

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