The Three Languages

Intro

Risen som ikke hadde noget hjerte paa sig — collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe. The youngest prince (Askeladden / “Boots” in Dasent’s English) frees his stone-turned brothers by finding a giant’s heart far outside the giant’s body. Norwegian; darker wonder-tale — gate at ages 6–8+. External-soul type ATU 302.

Story

A king had seven sons and loved them so much he could not bear them all away at once. Six princes rode out in fine clothes on costly horses to find brides — and a seventh princess for the brother left home. They found a king with six daughters, married them all, and forgot the errand for the seventh. Riding home they passed a mountain castle. A giant came out and turned all twelve to cold stone.

Grief filled the old king’s hall. At last the youngest begged leave to search. His father refused again and again, then yielded — and gave him the only mount left, a broken-down nag. The Ash-Lad set off on long odds.

On the road he found a raven faint with hunger and fed it from his slender provisions; the raven promised help. He found a salmon stranded on dry rock, slipped it back into water; the salmon promised aid. He met a gaunt grey wolf who begged for food. The boy had nothing left but his horse. He gave it up. The wolf, once fed, carried Boots faster than any horse to the giant’s castle.

Inside waited a princess the giant had carried off. The giant could not be killed, she said — he kept no heart in his body. Following the wolf’s counsel, Boots hid while the princess coaxed the secret. First the giant said the heart lay under the door-sill; she strewed the sill with flowers to honour it. Flattered, he confessed the truth: far away, on an island in a lake, stood a church; in the church a well; in the well a duck; inside the duck an egg; and in that egg — only there — his heart.

The wolf carried Boots to the island. The church keys hung high; the raven flew up and brought them down. Boots coaxed the duck from the well; the egg slipped and sank. The salmon dived and fetched it into his hands.

Boots squeezed the egg. Far away the giant screamed and begged for mercy. He would be spared, the boy said, only if he restored everyone he had turned to stone. The twelve stood breathing again. Then Boots squeezed the egg in two. The giant burst and was gone. Seven brothers rode home with seven brides; the old hall filled with a wedding feast.