trolls who had turned into stone they ought to
look just like that.

Although it was pretty down on the shore, the boy liked it still better
on the mountain height. It was ghastly down here; for everywhere they
came across dead sheep. It was here that the foxes had held their
orgies. He saw skeletons whose flesh had been eaten, and bodies that
were half-eaten, and others which they had scarcely tasted, but had
allowed to lie untouched. It was heart-rending to see how the wild
beasts had thrown themselves upon the sheep just for sport--just to
hunt them and tear them to death.

The big ram did not pause in front of the dead, but walked by them in
silence. But the boy, meanwhile, could not help seeing all the horror.

Then the big ram went up on the mountain height again; but when he was
there he stopped and said: "If someone who is capable and wise could see
all the misery which prevails here, he surely would not be able to rest
until these foxes had been punished." "The foxes must live, too," said
the boy. "Yes," said the big ram, "those who do not tear in pieces more
animals than they need for their sustenance, they may as well live. But
these are felons." "The peasants who own the island ought to come here
and help you," insisted the boy. "They have rowed over a number of
times," replied the ram, "but the foxes always hid themselves in the
grottoes and crevices, so they could not get near them, to shoot them."
"You surely cannot mean, father, that a poor little creature like me
should be able to get at them, when neither you nor the peasants have
succeeded in getting the better of them." "He that is little and spry
can put many things to rights," said the big ram.

They talked no more about this, and the boy went over and seated himself
among the wild geese who fed on the highland. Although he had not cared
to show his feelings before the ram, he was very sad on the sheep's
account, and he would have been glad to help them. "I can at least talk
with Akka and Morten goosey-gander about the matter," thought he.
"Perhaps they can help me with a good suggestion."

A little later the white goosey-gander took the boy on his back and went
over the mountain plain, and in the direction of Hell's Hole at that.

He wandered, care-free, on the open mountain roof--apparently
unconscious of how large and white he was. He didn't seek protection
behind tufts, or any other protuberances, but went straight ahead. It
was strange t