DANISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES
with the princess, they invariably stopped short; which the princess never did. One after another was seized and hanged without mercy.
The king was quite vexed by watching how matters went. "You ruin all my young men," said he to his daughter; "the prospects for enlistments in our army are extremely bad." But he was, of course, obliged to act according to his own decree, as kings must always do.
Somewhere in the country there lived a farmer who had three sons. Their names were John, James, and Peter. The two older ones were said to be quite ready talkers; they "had graduated" from a high-school, and every one considered them capable of talking a leg off an iron pot. Indeed, they thought themselves great fellows, and neither of them for a moment doubted his ability to win the princess by means of his ready tongue, and to become king of the land. It was agreed between them that the one who should ascend the throne would make the other his prime-minister.
Their father was proud of them and believed in their superior oratorical powers; he therefore equipped them with fine clothes and beautiful horses with silver bridles, and thus they were ready to depart. "I wish to go along," said Peter, their brother. Hitherto he had been looked upon as a scapegoat, and his parents considered him a mere simpleton. He had been doing all the disagreeable work that no one else wished to do, such as turf-digging and
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