“That’s a hard thing to get,” replied the lad; “and if that’s the only thing to cure you, I fear you’ll be ailing a long time.”
Then the Troll spoke up and said he knew where such milk was to be had. “But it takes a brave heart and a strong arm to get it, and that’s the truth,” said the Troll. He then told about his brother’s walled-in garden and the lions that were in it, and he said that if any one had the courage to go for it, ’twas there the milk was to be had.
The woman at once began to beg and entreat the lad to go and get it for her. He did not say no. “Though,” said he, “I think it is but little good the milk will do you, and that’s the truth.”
The Troll told him exactly where the garden was, and he gave him a key to the gate of it, so he would have no trouble in getting in. The lad took the key and a milking pail, and off he set. The Troll and the woman had no other thought than that was the end of him.
On and on he went, one foot before the other, and after a while he came to the garden, and then he took out the key and unlocked the door and stepped inside.
No sooner had he done this than he saw twelve great lions, each one fiercer and larger than the other, and they came at him ramping and roaring so that he was almost deafened by the noise of it, and their teeth were terrible to see.
But the lad was no whit frightened. He caught hold of the foremost lion, and tore it in two, and scattered it in pieces all about him.
When the other lions saw that, all the fierceness went out of them, and they crawled to his feet, and fawned on him, and became as tame as dogs.
The lad patted them, and then he milked a few drops into the milk pail and started for home with it, but the lions would not be left behind. They followed after him close at his heels, as dogs follow their master.
After a while he came within sight of the Troll’s house, and at that very moment the woman happened to be looking out of the window, and there she saw him coming along, with the eleven lions following after him. Then she was terribly frightened, and she called to the Troll, and together they barred all the doors and windows, so the lions could not get in at them.