“There’s nothing to take me elsewhere,” answered the woman.
Not long after, the Troll took up a crowbar that he kept over in a corner.
“I’ll just go over to the quarry and get out a few cornerstones while you are cooking the dinner,” said he. He then asked the lad whether he would go along with him.
“Yes, and gladly,” answered the lad; so the two set out together.
They worked for awhile at the top of the quarry, and then the Troll told the lad to go down to the bottom of it and see whether there were any loose stones lying around down there.
The lad was willing to do that, too. He went on down toward the bottom of the quarry. No sooner was he gone than the Troll set to work with his crowbar. He worked so hard that he groaned and sweated, and presently he loosened a whole crag and sent it rolling down on the boy.
But the lad saw it coming and was ready for it. He put out his hands and stopped it until he could get out of the way, and then he let it roll on to the bottom. After that he went back to where the Troll was.
“I couldn’t find any loose rocks down there so now do you go down and look for some,” he said.
The Troll was frightened when he saw the lad had come back to the top of the quarry unharmed. He thought he would certainly have been crushed under the crag that had rolled down on him. Neither did the Troll want to go down there below, but he had to.
Then the lad took up the crowbar and pried out another crag, and it rolled down on the Troll and hurt him so that he could not move, but lay where he was groaning. The boy had to go down and roll the crag off him and pick him up and carry him back to the house, and all the while the Troll kept on groaning most terribly. When they got home, the lad put the Troll to bed and he was hurt so badly he had to lie there.