Tales from the Fjeld Part 13

"When the King got home he asked guests and made a feast, but the meat was to be boiled in the new pot, and so he took it up and set it in the middle of the floor. The guests thought the King had lost his wits, and went about elbowing one another, and laughing at him. But he walked round and round the pot, and cackled and chattered, saying all in a breath--

"'Well, well! bide a bit, bide a bit! 'twill boil in a minute.'

"But there was no boiling. So he saw that Peik had been out again with his fooling rods and cheated him, and now he would set off at once and slay him.

"When the King came Peik stood out by the barn door. 'Wouldn't it boil?'

he asked.

"'No! it would not,' said the King; 'but now you shall smart for it,'

and so he was just going to unsheath his knife.

"'I can well believe that,' said Peik, 'for you did not take the block too.'

"'I wish I thought,' said the King, 'you weren't telling me a pack of lies.'

"'I tell you it's all because of the block it stands on; it won't boil without it,' said Peik.

"'Well; what did he want for it?' It was well worth three hundred dollars; but for the King's sake it should go for two. So he got the block and travelled home with it, and bade guests again, and made a feast, and set the pot on the chopping-block in the middle of the room.

The guests thought he was both daft and mad, and they went about making game of him, while he cackled and chattered round the pot, calling out 'Bide a bit, now it boils! now it boils in a trice.'

"But it wouldn't boil a bit more on the block than on the bare floor. So he saw again that Peik had been out with his fooling rods this time too.

Then he fell a-tearing his hair, and swore he would set off at once and slay him. He wouldn't spare him this time, whether he put a good or a bad face on it.

"But Peik had taken steps to meet him again. He slaughtered a wether and caught the blood in the bladder, and stuffed it into his sister's bosom, and told her what to say and do.

"'Where's Peik!' screeched out the King. He was in such a rage that his tongue faltered.

"'He is so poorly that he can't stir hand or foot,' she said, 'and now he's trying to get a nap.'

"'Wake him up,' said the King.

"'Nay, I daren't; he is so hasty,' said the sister.

"'Well! I'm hastier still,' said the King, 'and if you don't wake him, I will,' and with that he tapped his side where his knife hung.

"Well! she would go and wake him; but Peik turned hastily in his bed, drew out a little knife, and ripped open the bladder in her bosom, so that a stream of blood gushed out, and down she fell on the floor, as though she were dead.

"'What a dare devil you are, Peik,' said the King, 'if you haven't stabbed your sister to death, and here I stood by and saw it with my own eyes.'

"'There's no risk with her body so long as there's breath in my nostrils;' and with that he pulled out a ramshorn, and began to toot upon it, and when he had tooted a bridal tune, he put the end to her body, and blew life into her again, and up she rose as though there was naught the matter with her.

"'Bless me, Peik! can you kill folk and blow life into them again? Can you do that?' said the King.

"'Why!' said Peik, 'how could I get on at all if I couldn't? I'm always killing everyone I come near; don't you know I'm very hasty.'

"'So am I hot-tempered,' said the King, 'and that horn I must have; I'll give you a hundred dollars for it, and besides I'll forgive you for cheating me out of my horse, and for fooling me about the pot and the block, and all else.'

"Peik was very loth to part with it, but for his sake he would let him have it, and so the King went off home with it, and he had hardly got back before he must try it. So he fell a-wrangling and quarrelling with the Queen and his eldest daughter, and they paid him back in the same coin; but before they knew a word about it he whipped out his knife and cut their throats, so that they fell down stone dead, and everyone else ran out of the room, they were so afraid.

"The King walked and paced about the floor for a while, and kept chattering that there was no harm done, so long as there was breath in him, and a pack of such stuff which had flowed out of Peik's mouth, and then he pulled out the horn and began to blow 'Toot-i-too, Toot-i-too,'

but though he blew and tooted as hard as he could all that day and the next too, he couldn't blow life into them again. Dead they were, and dead they stayed, both the Queen and his daughter, and he was forced to buy graves for them in the churchyard, and to spend money on their funeral ale into the bargain.

"So he must and would go and cut Peik off; but Peik had his spies out, and knew when the King was coming, and then he said to his sister,--

"'Now you must change clothes with me and set off. If you will do that you may have all we have got.'

"Well! she changed clothes with him, and packed up and started off as fast as she could; but Peik sat all alone in his sister's clothes.

"'Where is that Peik?' said the King, as he came in a towering rage through the door.

"'He has run away,' said Peik.

"'Ah! had he been at home,' said the King, 'I'd have slain him on the spot. It's no good sparing the life of such a rogue.'

"'Yes! he knew by his spies that your Majesty was coming, and was going to take his life for his wicked tricks; but he has left me all alone without a morsel of bread or a penny in my purse,' said Peik, who made himself as soft and mealy-mouthed as a young lady.

"'Come along then to the King's Grange, and you shall have enough to live on. There's no good sitting here and starving in this cabin by yourself,' said the King.

"Yes! he was glad to do that; so the King took him with him, and had him taught everything, and treated him as his own daughter, and it was almost as if the King had his three daughters again, for Miss Peik sewed and st.i.tched, and sung and played with the others, and was with them early and late.

"After a time a king's son came to look for a wife.

"'Yes! I have three daughters,' said the King; 'it rests with you which you will have?'

"So he got leave to go up to their bower to make friends with them, and the end was that he liked Miss Peik best, and threw a silk kerchief into her lap as a love token. So they set to work to get ready the bridal feast, and in a little while his kinsfolk came, and the King's men, and they all fell to feasting and drinking on the bridal eve; but as night was falling Miss Peik daren't stay longer, but ran away from the King's Grange, out into the wide world, and the bride was lost; but there was worse behind, for just then both the other princesses felt very queer, and all at once two little princes came travelling into the world, and folk had to break up and go home just as the fun and feasting were highest.

"The King got both wroth and sorrowful, and began to wonder if it wasn't Peik again that had a finger in this pie.

"So he mounted his horse and rode out, for he thought it dull work staying at home; but when he got out among the ploughed fields, there sat Peik on a stone playing on a Jews' harp.

"'What! are you sitting there, Peik?' said the King.

"'Here I sit, sure enough,' said Peik. 'Where else should I sit?"

"'Now you have cheated me foully, time after time,' said the King; 'but now you must come along home with me, and I'll kill you.'

"'Well, well,' said Peik, 'if it can't be helped it can't; I suppose I must go along with you.'

"When they got home to the King's Grange, they got ready a cask which Peik was to be put in, and when it was ready they carted it up to a high fell; there he was to lie three days thinking on all the evil he had done, then they were to roll him down the fell into the firth.

"The third day a rich man pa.s.sed by, but Peik sat inside the cask and sang,--

'To heaven's bliss and Paradise, To heaven's bliss and Paradise.

"'I'd sooner far stay here and not be made an angel.'

"When the man heard that, he asked what he would take to change places with him.