said, "Chop!
chop!! chop!!!"

And lo and behold! the axe begins to chop, hew, hack, now right, now
left, and up and down, till the branches tumble on the Troll's head like
hail in autumn.

"Enough, enough!" said the Troll, who began to be alarmed. "Don't
destroy my forest. But who the mischief are you?"

"I am the famous sorcerer THUMBLING," answered our hero, in as gruff a
voice as his little body was capable of; "and I have only to say a
single word to chop your head off your shoulders. You don't know yet
with whom you have to do."

The giant hesitated, very much disturbed at what he saw. Meanwhile,
Thumbling, who began to be hungry, opened his stout leather bag, and
took out his bread and cheese.

"What is that white stuff?" asked the Troll, who had never seen any
cheese before.

"That is a stone," answered Thumbling. He began to eat as eagerly as
possible.

"Do you eat stones?" asked the giant.

"O yes," replied Thumbling, "that is my ordinary food, and that is the
reason I am not so big as you, who eat oxen; but it is also the reason
why, little as I am, I am ten times as strong as you are. Now take me to
your house."

The Troll was conquered; and, marching before Thumbling like a dog
before a little child, he led him to his monstrous cabin.

"Now listen," said Thumbling to the giant, after they were fairly
seated, "one of us has got to be the master, and the other the servant.
Let us make this bargain: if I can't do whatever you do, I am to be your
slave; if you are not able to do whatever I do, you are to be mine."

"Agreed," said the Troll; "I should admire to have such a little servant
as you are. It is too much work for me to think, and you have wit enough
for both; so begin with the trial. Here are my two buckets,--go and get
the water to make the soup."

Thumbling looked at the buckets. They were two enormous hogsheads, ten
feet high and six broad. It would have been much easier for him to drown
himself in them than to move them.

"O, ho!" shouted the giant, as he saw his hesitation; "and so you are
stuck at the first thing, my boy! Do what I do, you know, and get the
water."

"What is the good of that?" replied Thumbling, calmly; "I will go and
get the spring itself, and put that in the pot."

"No! no!" said the Troll; "that won't do. You have already half spoiled
my forest, and I don't want you to take my spring away, lest to-morrow I
shall go dry. You may attend to the fire, and I wil