h bit it she cried, 'Uh! no, no!
This is nothing but skin and bone; he must be fattened much longer yet.'

So Esben was fed for a while longer on sweet milk and nut-kernels, until
one day the witch thought that now he must surely be fat enough, and
told her daughter again to go and cut a finger off him. By this time
Esben was tired of staying in the dark hole, so he told her to go and
cut a teat off a cow, and give it to the witch to bite at. This the
daughter did, and the witch cried, 'Ah! now he is fat--so fat that one
can scarcely feel the bone in him. Now he shall be killed.'

Now this was just the very time that the witch had to go to Troms
Church, where all the witches gather once every year, so she had no time
to deal with Esben herself. She therefore told her daughter to heat up
the big oven while she was away, take Esben out of his prison, and roast
him in there before she came back. The daughter promised all this, and
the witch went off on her journey.

The daughter then made the oven as hot as could be, and took Esben out
of his prison in order to roast him. She brought the oven spade, and
told Esben to seat himself on it, so that she could shoot him into the
oven. Esben accordingly took his seat on it, but when she had got him to
the mouth of the oven he spread his legs out wide, so that she could not
get him pushed in.

'You mustn't sit like that,' said she.

'How then?' said Esben.

'You must cross your legs,' said the daughter; but Esben could not
understand what she meant by this.

'Get out of the way,' said she, 'and I will show you how to place
yourself.'

She seated herself on the oven spade, but no sooner had she done so than
Esben laid hold of it, shot her into the oven, and fastened the door
of it. Then he ran and seized the coverlet, but as soon as he did so it
sounded so that it could be heard over eight kingdoms, and the witch,
who was at Troms Church, came flying home, and shouted, 'Hey! is that
you again, Esben?'

'Ye--e--s!'

'It was you that made me kill my eleven daughters?'

'Ye--e--s!'

'And took my dove?'

'Ye--e--s!'

'And my beautiful boar?'

'Ye--e--s!'

'And drowned my twelfth daughter in the well, and took my lamp?'

'Ye--e--s!'

'And now you have roasted my thirteenth and last daughter in the oven,
and taken my coverlet?'

'YeAeeAes!'

'Are you coming back again?'

'No, never again,' said Esben.

At this the witch became so furious that she sprang in