Peter Christen Asbjørnsen

“ Oh, I'm going into the wood to build me a ship which will go as well on land as on sea; for you must know that the king has given out that the man who can build such a ship shall have the princess and half the realm. ”

“ Then Boots strode into the king, and said there was the water, and now he must have the princess, there must be no words about it. But more the king thought him just as sooty and smutty as before, and did not at all like to have him for a son-in-law. So the king said he had three hundred fathoms of wood, with which he was about to dry corn in the malt-house, and "all the same, if you are man enough to get inside it while I burn up all that fuel, you shall have her, and I will make no more bones about it." ”

“ Yes, he was willing enough, and he took with him a few big granite boulders as his sea stores.
So when they had sailed a bit farther they met a man who lay on a sunny brae and sucked at a tap.
"What sort of a chap are you?" asked Boots, "and what good is it that you lie there sucking at that tap?"
"Oh," said he, "when one hasn't got the cask, one must be thankful for the tap. I am always so thirsty for ale, that I can never drink enough ale or wine;" and then he asked if he might have leave to be one of the ship's company. ”