All this the lad lay and listened to.

When the morning came the old dame was so poorly that she couldn't
utter a word but groans and sighs. She was sure she should never be
well again, unless she had some of those apples that grew in the
orchard near the castle where the man's brothers lived; only she had
no one to send for them.

Oh! the lad was ready to go that instant; but the eleven lions went
with him. So when he came to the orchard, he climbed up into the apple
tree and ate as many apples as he could, and he had scarce got down
before he fell into a deep sleep; but the lions all lay round him in a
ring. The third day came the _Troll's_ brothers, but they did not
come in man's shape. They came snorting like man-eating steeds, and
wondered who it was that dared to be there, and said they would tear
him to pieces, so small that there should not be a bit of him left.
But up rose the lions and tore the _Trolls_ into small pieces, so that
the place looked as if a dung heap had been tossed about it; and when
they had finished the _Trolls_ they lay down again. The lad did not
wake till late in the afternoon, and when he got on his knees and
rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, he began to wonder what had been
going on, when he saw the marks of hoofs. But when he went towards the
castle, a maiden looked out of a window who had seen all that had
happened, and she said:

"You may thank your stars you weren't in that tussle, else you must
have lost your life."

"What! I lose my life! No fear of that, I think," said the lad.

So she begged him to come in, that she might talk with him, for she
hadn't seen a Christian soul ever since she came there. But when she
opened the door the lions wanted to go in too, but she got so
frightened that she began to scream, and so the lad let them lie
outside. Then the two talked and talked, and the lad asked how it
came that she, who was so lovely, could put up with those ugly
_Trolls_. She never wished it, she said; 'twas quite against her will.
They had seized her by force, and she was the King of Arabia's
daughter. So they talked on, and at last she asked him what he would
do; whether she should go back home, or whether he would have her to
wife. Of course he would have her, and she shouldn't go home.

After that they went round the castle, and at last they came to a
great hall, where the _Trolls'_ two great swords hung high up on the
wall.

"I wonder if you are man enough to wield