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The king was rather annoyed at this. "You're destroying all my lads for me; there'll be no end of trouble when it comes to enlistments." But of course he had to obey his own rule; there was nothing he could do about it.
So there was a farmer out in the countryside, who had three sons, they were called Per and Povl and Esben. The two older ones were considered to be great wits, they had been to high school, and could talk the ears off the Devil, so it was said, and they thought so too, and now they wanted to see if one of them, with his gift of gab, couldn't win the Princess and become king of the land. The one who didn't become king, he would be prime minister, they were in agreement on that.
Their father was proud of them and had faith in their verbal prowess, so he gave them fine clothes, and a pair of fine horses with silver bits, and now they were ready to be off. "I'll go too," said Esben, who played the part of oddball at home, and was deemed all but an idiot. He was given only the meanest and crudest tasks, such as digging turf and hauling dung, and he made his bed among the ashes and coals; for this they called him Esben Ashpuffer. "I'll go too," he said.—No, they would have none of that, said his brothers; he could stay home in his chimney-corner, that was the best place for him.—"I look nice enough as I am, I'm not asking for new clothes," said Esben; but he still wanted a horse to ride on, it didn't matter what sort. But that was out of the question; his father and brothers merely laughed at him and said that he could always ride shanks' mare.—"Well, I will go too," said Esben, and so he trotted along after his two stately brothers when they rode off from the farmyard.
When they have come a small part of the way, Esben yells after them: "Hey there! see what I found!"—"What have you
