Rap, tap, tap! they knocked at the door, but nobody came; so they opened it for themselves and walked in.
No; there was no one at home, but there was a table spread with a smoking hot supper, and places for three. Down they sat without waiting for the bidding, for their hunger was as sharp as vinegar.
Well, they ate and they ate and they ate until they could eat no more, and then they turned around and roasted their toes at the warm fire.
That was all very well and good, but by and by all the wood was burned, and then who was to go out into the dark forest and fetch another armful?
“Not I,” says the tinker.
“Not I,” says the shoemaker.
And so it fell to the lot of the fiddler, and off he went.
But many a one spills the milk-mug to save the water-jug, and so it was with the tinker and the shoemaker; for, while they sat warming their shins at the fire and rubbing their hands over their knees, in walked an ugly little troll no taller than a yard-stick, but with a head as big as a cabbage, and a good stout cudgel twice as long as himself in his hand; as for his eyes, why, they were as big as your mother’s teacups.
“I want something to eat,” says he.