story of Shortshanks may be taken as a fair, and even a favorable
example of the tone of these Norse tales. Shortshanks and King Sturdy
are twin brothers, who set out to seek their fortunes within a few
minutes of their birth, driven thereto by a precocious perception of the
_res angustae domi_. They part at two roads almost immediately, and the
story follows the fortunes of Shortshanks, the younger; for in these
miniature romances the elder is, as usual, continually snubbed, and the
younger is always the great man. Shortshanks has not gone far before he
meets "an old crook-backed hag," who has only one eye; and he commences
his career by gouging out or "snapping up" the single comfort of this
helpless creature. To get her eye back again, she gives Shortshanks a
sword that will put a whole army to flight; and he, charmed with the
result of his first manoeuvre, puts it in practice successively upon two
other decrepit, half-blind women, who, to get their eyes again, give
him, one, a ship that can sail over fresh water and salt water and over
high hills and deep dales, the other, the art how to brew a hundred
lasts of malt at one strike. The ship takes him to the king's palace, on
arriving at which he puts his vessel in his pocket, when he summons his
craft to his aid, and gets a place in the king's kitchen to carry wood
and water for the maid. The king's daughter has for some inscrutable
reason been promised to three ogres, who come successively to fetch her;
and a certain Ritter Red professes to be man enough to rescue her, but
on the approach of the first ogre proves to be a coward and climbs a
tree. But Shortshanks slips off from his scullery; and having a weapon
which can put a whole army to flight by a single stroke, he is very
brave, and keeps a remarkably good face to the foe, giving him with his
tongue as good as he sends, and, laughing the ogres' dubs to scorn, cuts
off the ogrous heads, (there are five on the first individual, ten on
the second, and fifteen on the third,) and carries off much treasure
from the ships in which his foes came to fetch their victim. Ritter Red
descends, and takes the lungs and the tongues of the ogres, (though, as
the latter were thirty in number and of gigantic size, he must have had
trouble in carrying them,) and wishes to pass them off as evidence that
he is the deliverer of the princess, of which they would seem to have
been very satisfactory proof: but the gold, silver, and diamond