Peter Christen Asbjørnsen

“ If we are not good enough to make our hands meet, it will be big enough; but mind you stretch out well. Stretch out well, do you hear?" said the lad, as he took out his thongs. As for the man, he did all the lad told him.
"Yes," said the lad, "we shall meet nicely, I can see. But stop a bit, and I'll stretch your hands better," he said, as he slipped a running knot over his wrists and drew it tight, and bound him fast to the tree; then out came the cat-o'-nine-tails, and he fell to flogging the old hunks as fast as he could, and all the while he cried out—
"This is the lad who sold the pig! ”

“ So he offered it to this man and that, good and bad alike; but there was no one who just then cared to buy a pig. At last he came to a rich old hunks; but you know much will always have more, and that man was one of the sort that never can have enough.
"Will you buy a pig to-day?" said the lad; "a good pig, and a long pig, and a fine fat pig." ”

“ The longer he went and thought of this, the angrier he got, and at last he thought to himself—
"If I could only play him a pretty trick, I wouldn't care either for the pig or the pence."
So he went away and got him a pair of stout thongs and a cat-o'-nine-tails, and then he threw over him a big cloak, and put on a billygoat's beard; and so he went back to the skinflint, and said he was from outlandish parts, where he had learnt to be a master-builder for you must know he had heard the old hunks was going to build a house. ”