WORLD OF STORIES FOR KIDS

NORWEGIAN FOLK TALES

The ashlad who made the princess tell the truth

THERE was once on a time a king who had a daughter. She was such an awful fibber that you couldn't find a greater anywhere. So the king made it known that if anyone could outdo her in telling fibs and could make her tell the truth, he should have her for a wife and half the kingdom into the bargain.
      There were many who tried. All and sundry would be glad to get the princess and half the kingdom, but none succeeded.
      Well, there were also three brothers; they were also going to try their luck. The two elder set out first, but they fared no better than all the others. Then the youngest, the ashlad, thought he would try. He set out for the giant palace and met the princess outside the cowshed.
      "Good-day," he said.
      "Good-day," she said in return. "You haven't got so big a bull as we have! Look ... And we milk into great big casks."
      He: "Let me tell you ... I climbed right up to the clouds the other day and there I felt the North Wind resting. I felt stranded as I hovered there in the wide open, but a warming wind candidly let me down. I landed in a fox's hole - the nest of your mother and your father, I think it was! You didn't know your mother gave your father such a blow that plenty of figs dropped from his hair!"
      The princess shouted: "Father never grew figs in his hair!"
      By that the ashlad won her!
The tale is much shortened, and is about boasting one's way and winning one's way as well. Some rise above that, even into allegorical outlets. At times they seem thin like air, but that's another story.

BACK