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Updated: May 4, 2025
But the King turned to Ashipattle and called him son, and took the hand of the Princess Gemlovely and laid it in the lad's hand, for now she was to be his bride as the King had promised. Then they all rode back to the palace together, and the King took the sword Snickersnapper and gave it to Ashipattle for him to keep as his own. A great feast was spread in honor of the slaying of the Stoorworm.
He caught up the pot and leaped into the boat, and before the boatman could stop him he pushed off from the shore. Too late the boatman saw what he was doing. He ran down to the edge of the water and shouted and stormed and cried to Ashipattle to come back, but Ashipattle paid no heed to him. He never even turned his head.
Then slowly the monster closed his mouth and all was still save for the foaming and surging of the waters. Ashipattle steered his boat close in against the monster's jaws, and it lay there, rocking in the tide, while he waited for the Stoorworm to yawn again. Presently slowly, slowly, the great jaws gaped, and the flood rushed in, foaming.
Still his mother spoke never a word, but Ashipattle could see that she was thinking. That night Ashipattle lay awake long after the others were asleep. He heard his father snoring and his brothers, too, but it seemed his mother could not sleep. She turned and twisted and sighed aloud, until at last she awakened her husband.
Ashipattle took his knife and dug a hole in the heart, and emptied the hot peat into it. Then he blew and blew on the peat. He blew until his cheeks almost cracked with blowing, and it seemed as though the peat would never burn. But at last it flared up; the oil of the heart trickled down upon it, and the flame burst into a blaze. Higher and higher waxed the fire.
In return for her kindness he told her long stories of trolls and giants and heroes and brave deeds, and as long as he would tell she would sit and listen. But his brothers could not stand his stories, and used to throw clods at him to make him be quiet. They were angry because Ashipattle was always the hero of his own stories, and in his tales there was nothing he dared not do.
"Here I sit and freeze all night, for it is cold on the water, and not a soul except myself but what is safe asleep in a good warm bed." "I have a fire here in the pot," called Ashipattle. "Draw your boat in to shore and come and warm yourself, for I can see even from here that you are almost perished." "That I may not do," answered the man.
The day before the beauteous Gemlovely was to be sacrificed Ashipattle said to his mother, "Tell me something; how is it that Feetgong will not go for you or my brothers or any one, but when my father mounts him he goes like the wind, none faster?" Then his mother answered, "Indeed, I do not know."
Ashipattle waited until near morning, and then he arose and dressed himself. He put on the coat of one brother, and the breeches of another, and the shoes of a third, and so on, for his own clothes were nothing but rags. He felt in the right-hand pocket of his father's coat, and there, sure enough, he found the dried windpipe of a goose.
He gathered the sticks for the fire, he swept the floor, he cleaned the byre, he ran the errands, and all he got for his pains were kicks and cuffs and mocking words. Still he was a merry fellow, and as far as words went he gave his brothers as good as they sent. Ashipattle had one sister, and she was very good and kind to him.
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