“That may well be the case,” said the dog. “But then it would be best if I died at once, for then the youth might still be saved.”
“O, that is not necessary!” said the rat—who was there, too—“I do not need a very large opening through which to crawl, and if the ring is really there, I am sure I can find it.” So the rat slipped down into the dog, and before very long he came out again with the ring. And then the cat made her way to the tower, and clawed her way up till she found a hole through which she could thrust her paw, and thus brought back the ring to the youth.
No sooner was it on his finger than he wished that the tower might break down, and that very moment he was standing just before the tower-gate, and reviling the king and the queen and the king’s daughter as though they were the lowest of the low. The king hastily called together his army, and told it to surround the tower, and take the youth prisoner, dead or alive. But the youth only wished the whole army might be sticking up to their necks in the big swamp in the hills, and there they had trouble enough getting out—those among them who did not stick fast. Then he went right on reviling where he had stopped, and finally, when he had told them all just what he thought of them, he wished that the king, the queen and the king’s daughter might sit for the rest of their lives in the tower into which they had thrust him. And when they were sitting there, he took possession of the king’s land and country on his own account. Then the dog changed into a prince, and the cat into a princess, and he made the latter his wife, and they were married and celebrated their wedding long and profusely.
NOTE
In “The Youth Who Was to Serve Three Years Without Pay” (Asbjörnsen, N.F.E., No. 63, p. 8. From Gudbrandsdal) we have the tale of a magic ring, whose possessor is robbed of it by a faithless woman, and which is brought back to him by faithful animals, after various vicissitudes.
XXXIV
THE YOUTH WHO WANTED TO WIN THE DAUGHTER OF THE MOTHER IN THE CORNER
Once upon a time there was a woman who had a son, and he was so lazy and slow that there was not a single blessed useful thing he would do. But he liked to sing and to dance, and that is what he did all day long, and far into the night as well. The longer this went on, the worse off his mother was. The youth was growing, and he wanted so much to eat that it was barely possible to find it, and more and more went for his clothes the older he grew, since his clothes did not last long, as you may imagine, because the youth skipped and dance about without stopping, through forest and field.
At length it was too much for his mother, so one day she told the young fellow that he ought at last to get to work, and really do something, or both of them would have to starve to death. But the youth had no mind to do so, he said, and would rather try to win the daughter of the mother in the corner, for if he got her, then he would live happily ever after, and could sing and dance, and would not have to plague himself with work.