Now, right out at sea, beyond the skerries, lay a large rock, the lair of wild-fowl, whither the merchant who owned it came every year to bring away rich loads of eider-down. A long way down the side of this lofty rock was a cleft. Nobody could tell how far into the rock it went, and so inaccessible was it there that its owner had said that whoever liked might come and take eider-down from thence. It became quite a proverb to say, when anything couldn't be done, that it was just as impossible as taking eider-down from Dyrevig rock.
But Bardun passed by the rock, and peeped up at the cleft, and saw all the hosts of the fowls of the air lighting upon it so many times that he felt he needs must try his hand at it.
He lost no time about it, and the sun was shining brightly as he set out.
He took with him a long piece of rope, which he cast two or three times round a rocky crag, and lowered himself down till he was right opposite the cleft. There he hung and swung over it backwards and forwards till he had got a firm footing, and then he set about collecting eider-down and stuffing his sacks with it.
He went searching about for it so far into the rocky chasm that he saw no more than a gleam of sunlight outside the opening, and he couldn't take a hundreth part of the eider-down that was there.
It was quite late in the evening before he gave up trying to gather it all. But when he came out again, the stone which he had placed on the top of the rope and tied it to was gone. And now the rope hung loosely there, and dangled over the side of the rock. The wind blew it in and out and hither and thither. The currents of air sported madly with it, so that it always kept sheer away from the rock and far out over the abyss.
There he stood then, and tried again and again to clutch hold of it till the sun lay right down in the sea.
When it began to dawn again, and the morning breeze rose up from the sea, he all at once heard something right over his head say--
"It blows away, it blows away!"
He looked up, and there he saw a big woman holding the rope away from the cliff side.