"'If I can't do them any other harm,' he said, 'they sha'n't have water to boil their bridal brose.'
"So there was no help for it but to send for Boots again. Then he got him an iron bar, which was to be fifteen ells long, and six smiths were to make it red hot. Then he peeped through his key ring, and saw where the troll was, just as well underground as above it, and then he drove the bar down through the ground, and into the troll's backbone, and all I can say was, there was a smell of burnt horn fifteen miles round.
"'Haw! haw!' bellowed out the troll, 'let me out,' and in a trice he came tearing up through the hole, and all his back was burnt and singed up to the nape of his neck.
"But Boots was not slow, for he caught the troll and laid him on a stake that had thyme twisted round it, and there he had to be till he told him where he had got eyes from after those had been hacked out with the hemp-comb.
"'If you must know,' said the troll, 'I stole a turnip, and rubbed it well over with ointment, and then I cut it to the sizes I needed, and nailed them in tight with ten-penny nails, and better eyes I hope no Christian man will ever have.'
"Then the king came with the two princesses, and wanted to see the troll, and Glibtongue walked so bent and bowed, his coat tails were higher than his neck. But then the king caught sight of something glistening in the hair of Boots.
"'What have you got there?' he said.
"'Oh!' said Boots, 'nothing but the ring your daughter gave me when I freed her from the troll.'
"And now it came out how it had all happened. Glibtongue begged and prayed for himself, but for all his trying and all his crying there was no help for it, down he had to go into a pit full of snakes, and there he lay till he burst.
"Then they put an end to the troll, and then they began to be noisy and merry, and to drink and dance at the bridal of Boots, for now he was king of that company, and he got the youngest princess and half the kingdom.