und below where stood the rat-catcher's house, said to his
fellows: "Up yonder is a man who has a daughter; so greedy is he, he
would sell her to the first comer who gave him gold enough! I am going
up to look after her."

So one night, when the rat-catcher set a trap, the gnome went and got
himself caught in it. There in the morning, when the rat-catcher came,
he found a funny little fellow, all bright and golden, wriggling and
beating to be free.

"I can't get out!" cried the little gnome. "Let me go!"

The rat-catcher screwed up his mouth to look virtuous. "If I let you
out, what will you give me?" "A sack full of gold," answered the gnome,
"just as heavy as myself--not a pennyweight less!"

"Not enough!" said the rat-catcher. "Guess again!"

"As heavy as you are!" cried the gnome, beginning to plead in a thin,
whining tone.

"I'm a poor man," said the rat-catcher; "a poor man mayn't afford to be
generous!"

"What is it you want of me?" cried the gnome.

"If I let you go," said the rat-catcher, "you must make me the richest
man in the world!" Then he thought of his daughter: "Also you must make
the king's son marry my daughter; then I will let you go."

The gnome laughed to himself to see how the trapper was being trapped
in his own avarice as, with the most melancholy air, he answered: "I can
make you the richest man in the world; but I know of no way of making
the king's son marry your daughter, except one."

"What way?" asked the rat-catcher.

"Why," answered the gnome, "for three years your daughter must come and
live with me underground, and by the end of the third year her skin will
be changed into pure gold like ours. And do you know any king's son who
would refuse to marry a beautiful maiden who was pure gold from the sole
of her foot to the crown of her head?"

The rat-catcher had so greedy an inside that he could not believe in any
king's son refusing to marry a maiden of pure gold. So he clapped hands
on the bargain, and let the gnome go.

The gnome went down into the ground, and fetched up sacks and sacks of
gold, until he had made the rat-catcher the richest man in the world.
Then the father called his daughter, whose name was Jasome', and bade
her follow the gnome down into the heart of the earth. It was all in
vain that Jasome' begged and implored; the rat-catcher was bent on
having her married to the king's son. So he pushed, and the gnome
pulled, and down she went; and the earth close