"So when they had travelled awhile, they came to a field of rye, and the fox said:
"'I hear a noise; now you must ride on alone, and I will bide here awhile.'
"So he platted himself a dress of rye-straw, and it looked just like some one who stood there and preached. And he had scarcely done that before all three Trolls came flying along, thinking they would overtake them.
"'Have you seen any one riding by here with a lovely maiden, and a horse with a gold bit, and a golden bird and a gilded linden-tree?' they all roared out to him who stood there preaching.
"'Yes! I heard that from my grandmother's grandmother, that such a train passed by here, but Lord bless us, that was in the good old time, when my grandmother's grandmother baked cakes for a penny, and gave the penny back again.'
"Then all the three Trolls burst out into loud fits of laughter, 'HA! HA! HA! HA!' they cried, and took hold of one another.
"'If we have slept so long, we may e'en just turn our noses home, and go to bed,' they said; and so they went back by the way they had come.
"Then the fox started off after the king's son; but when they got to the town where the inn and his brothers were, he said:
"'I dare not go through the town for the dogs. I must take my own way round about; but now you must take good care that your brothers don't lay hold of you.'
"But when the king's son got into the town, he thought it very hard if he didn't look in on his brothers and have a word with them, and so he halted a little time. But as soon as his brothers set eyes on him, they came out and took from him both the maiden and the horse, and the bird and the linden, and everything; and himself they stuffed into a cask and cast him into the lake, and so they set off home to the king's palace, with the maiden and the horse, and the bird and linden, and everything. But the maiden wouldn't say a word; she got pale and wretched to look at. The horse got so thin and starved, all his bones scarce clung together. The bird moped and shone no more, and the linden withered away.