Peter Christen Asbjørnsen

“ Well, when the man was dead, the lad made up his mind to go out into the world to try his luck; so he girded the sword about him, and took the crusts and laid them in the bit of linen for his travelling fare; for you must know they lived far away up on a hillside in the wood, far from folk. Now the way he went took him over a fell, and when he had got up so high that he could look over the country, he set his eyes on a lion, a falcon, and an ant, who stood there quarrelling over a dead horse. ”

“ So the lad took his sword, and shared the horse as well as he could. To the lion he gave the carcass and the greater portion; the falcon got some of the entrails and other tit-bits; and the ant got the head. When he had done, he said—
"Now I think it is fairly shared. The lion shall have most, because he is biggest and strongest; the falcon shall have the best, because he is nice and dainty; and the ant shall have the skull, because he loves to creep about in holes and crannies." ”

“ She was promised to a hill-ogre, and the very first time she came under bare sky he was to come and take her; and so when the lad came she thought it was the hill-ogre. And besides, every Thursday morning came a messenger from the hill-ogre, and that was a dragon, to whom the king had to give nine fat pigs every time he came; and that was why he had given it out that the man who could free him from the dragon should have the princess and half the kingdom. ”