Читать книгу A Selection from the Norse Tales for the Use of Children онлайн

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“Oh! gracious goodness! don’t kill me, for I’ve gone about seeking you these three years, and if I could only set you free, I’d willingly lose my life.”

“Well!” said they, “if you will set us free, you may keep your life; for you can if you choose.”

“Yes; only tell me,” said the Princess; “how it can be done, and I’ll do it, whatever it be.”

“You must pick thistle-down,” said the Princes, “and you must card it, and spin it, and weave it; and after you have done that, you must cut out and make twelve coats, and twelve shirts, and twelve neckerchiefs, one for each of us, and while you do that, you must neither talk, nor laugh, nor weep. If you can do that, we are free.”

“But where shall I ever get thistle-down enough for so many neckerchiefs, and shirts, and coats?” asked Snow-white and Rosy-red.

“We’ll soon shew you,” said the Princes; and so they took her with them to a great wide moor, where there stood such a crop of thistles, all nodding and nodding in the breeze, and the down all floating and glistening like gossamers through the air in the sunbeams. The Princess had never seen such a quantity of thistle-down in her life, and she began to pluck and gather it as fast and as well as she could; and when she got home at night she set to work carding and spinning yarn from the down. So she went on a long long time, picking, and carding, and spinning, and all the while keeping the Princes’ house, cooking and making their beds. At evening home they came, flapping and whirring like wild ducks, and all night they were Princes, but in the morning off they flew again, and were wild ducks the whole day.