And then who was glad but the pretty princess. She flung her arms around the merry little fiddler’s neck, and gave him a right good smacking kiss or two, and that paid a part of the score, I can tell you. Then they sat down and the pretty princess told him all about how the troll had carried her off a year and more ago, and had kept her in this place ever since. After that she took a pure gold ring off of her finger and broke it in two; half of it was for the fiddler and half of it was for her; for they were sweethearts now, and the ring was to be a love-token.
Then the fiddler put the princess into the basket, and the two fellows above hauled her up. By and by down came the basket again, and now it was the fiddler’s turn. “Suppose,” says he, “that they are up to some of their tricks!” So he tumbled a great stone into the basket in the place of himself. Sure enough, when the basket was about half-way up, down it came tumbling, for the rogues above had cut the rope, and if the fiddler had been there in the place of the stone, it would have been all over with him.
Then if anybody was ever down in the dumps the fiddler was the fellow. For there he was down in the pit, and he could no more get out of his pickle than a toad out of the cellar window. After he had been there for ever so long a time, he saw a pretty little fiddle that hung back of the cupboard. “Aha!” says he, “there is some butter to the crust after all; and now we will just have a bit of a jig to cheer us up a little.” So down he sat and began to play.
And then what do you think happened? Why, up popped a little fellow no higher than your knee and as black as your hat!
“What do you want, master?” said he.
“So,” said the fiddler, “and is that the tune we play? Well, I should like to get out of this pit, that I should.”
No sooner said than done, for he had hardly time to pick up his staff and tuck the fiddle under his arm, when—whisk!—he was up above as quick as a wink.
“Hi!” said he, “but this is a pretty fiddle to own and no mistake!” and off he went, right foot foremost.
After a while he came to the town where the king lived, and there was a great buzzing and gossip, and this was why: all the folks were talking about how the tinker and the shoemaker had brought back the princess from the ugly little troll, and of how the king had promised that whoever did that was to have her for his wife and half of the kingdom to boot; but here were two lads, and the question was who was to have her. For before they had left the pit over yonder, the tinker and the shoemaker had made the princess vow and promise that she would say nothing about how they had treated the fiddler, and now each fellow was saying that he had brought her up out of the troll’s den.