‘I have come for something else besides a bed,’ replied the young man, drawing his sword, ‘and if you do not promise to give me your youngest daughter as my wife I will stab you through the heart.’
What could the poor man do but promise? And he fetched his youngest daughter, who seemed quite pleased at the proposed match, and gave the youth her hand.
Then the young man went home to his parents, and bade them get ready to welcome his bride. And when the wedding was over he told his father-in-law, the herdsman, what he had done with the sheep, and pigs, and cattle. By-and-by the story came to the king’s ears, and he thought that a man who was so clever was just the man to govern the country; so he made him his minister, and after the king himself there was no one so great as he.
[From Isländische Mährehen.]
