e attempt.

He went down into the stable, and very sad and full of care he was. Then
Dapplegrim inquired why he was so troubled, and the youth told him, and
said that he did not know what to do, 'for as to setting the Princess
free, that was downright impossible.'

'Oh, but it might be done,' said Dapplegrim. 'I will help you; but you
must first have me well shod. You must ask for ten pounds of iron and
twelve pounds of steel for the shoeing, and one smith to hammer and one
to hold.'

So the youth did this, and no one said him nay. He got both the iron
and the steel, and the smiths, and thus was Dapplegrim shod strongly and
well, and when the youth went out of the King's palace a cloud of dust
rose up behind him. But when he came to the mountain into which the
Princess had been carried, the difficulty was to ascend the precipitous
wall of rock by which he was to get on to the mountain beyond, for the
rock stood right up on end, as steep as a house side and as smooth as a
sheet of glass. The first time the youth rode at it he got a little way
up the precipice, but then both Dapplegrim's fore legs slipped, and down
came horse and rider with a sound like thunder among the mountains. The
next time that he rode at it he got a little farther up, but then one of
Dapplegrim's fore legs slipped, and down they went with the sound of a
landslip. But the third time Dapplegrim said: 'Now we must show what we
can do,' and went at it once more till the stones sprang up sky high,
and thus they got up. Then the lad rode into the mountain cleft at full
gallop and caught up the Princess on his saddle-bow, and then out again
before the Troll even had time to stand up, and thus the Princess was
set free.

When the youth returned to the palace the King was both happy and
delighted to get his daughter back again, as may easily be believed, but
somehow or other the people about the Court had so worked on him that
he was angry with the lad too. 'Thou shalt have my thanks for setting my
Princess free,' he said, when the youth came into the palace with her,
and was then about to go away.

She ought to be just as much my Princess as she is yours now, for you
are a man of your word,' said the youth.

'Yes, yes,' said the King. 'Have her thou shalt, as I have said it; but
first of all thou must make the sun shine into my palace here.'

For there was a large and high hill outside the windows which
overshadowed the palace so much that the sun