Then all the three Trolls burst out into loud fits of laughter. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" they cried, and took hold of one another.
"If we have slept so long, we may e'en just turn our noses home, and go to bed," they said; and so they went back by the way they had come.
Then the fox started off after the king's son; but when they got to the town where the inn and his brothers were, he said—
"I dare not go through the town for the dogs. I must take my own way round about; but now you must take good care that your brothers don't lay hold of you."
But when the king's son got into the town, he thought it very hard if he didn't look in on his brothers and have a word with them, and so he halted a little time. But as soon as his brothers set eyes on him, they came out and took from him both the maiden, and the horse, and the bird, and the linden, and everything; and himself
