The princess on the glass hill

”

“Well, so there is,” said Boots; and off ran the others to see, and there stood the grass thick and deep, as it was the year before; but they didn’t give Boots softer words for all that.

Now, when the third St. John’s eve came, the two elder brothers still hadn’t the heart to lie out in the barn and watch the grass, for they had got so scared at heart the nights they lay there before, that they couldn’t get over the fright; but Boots, he dared to go; and, to make a very long story short, the very same thing happened this time as had happened twice before. Three earthquakes came, one after the other, each worse than the one which went before, and when the last came, the lad danced about with the shock from one barn wall to the other; and after that, all at once, it was still as death. Now when he had laid a little while, he heard something tugging away at the grass outside the barn, so he stole again to the door-chink, and peeped out, and there stood a horse close outside—far, far bigger and fatter than the two he had taken before.

“Ho, ho!” said the lad to himself, “it’s you, is it, that comes here eating up our hay? I’ll soon stop that—I’ll soon put a spoke in your wheel.” So he caught up his steel and threw it over his horse’s neck, and in a trice it stood as if it were nailed to the ground, and Boots could do as he pleased with it. Then he rode off with it to the hiding-place where he kept the other two, and then went home. When he got home, his two brothers made game of him as they had done before, saying, they could see he had watched the grass well, for he looked for all the world as if he were walking in his sleep, and many other spiteful things they said, but Boots gave no heed to them, only asking them to go and see for themselves; and when they went, there stood the grass as fine and deep this time as it had been twice before.

Now, you must know that the king of the country where Boots lived had a daughter, whom he would only give to the man who could ride up over the hill of glass, for there was a high, high hill, all of glass, as smooth and slippery as ice, close by the King’s palace.