Osborn Boots and Mr. Glibtongue
ONCE on a time there was a king who had many hundred sheep, and many hundred goats and kine, and many hundred horses he had too, and silver and gold in great heaps. But for all that he was so given to grief, that he seldom or ever saw folk, much less said a word to them. Such he had been ever since his youngest daughter was lost; and if he had never lost her, it would still have been bad enough, for there was a Troll who was for ever making such waste and worry there, that folk could hardly pass to the king's grange in peace. Now the Troll let all the horses loose, and they trampled down mead and cornfield, and ate up the crops; now he tore the heads off the king's ducks and geese; sometimes he killed the king's kine in the byre; sometimes he drove the king's sheep and goats down the rocks, and broke their necks; and every time they went to fish in the mill-dam, he had hunted all the fish to land, and left them lying there dead.
Well, there was a couple of old folk who had three sons; the first was called Peter, the second Paul, and the third Osborn Boots, for he always lay and grubbed about in the ashes.
They were hopeful youths; but Peter, who was the
261
