ver which was in
the castle.

Suddenly the fire went out, so they could not tell the one card from the
other.

"We must chop some wood now," said the youngster, who drove the axe into
the fir block, and forced the wedge in; but the twisted, knotty block
would not split, although the youngster worked as hard as he could with
the axe.

"They say you are strong," he said to the devil; "just spit on your
hands, stick your claws in, and tear away, and let me see what you are
made of."

The devil did so, and put both his fists into the split and pulled as
hard as he could, when the youngster suddenly struck the wedge out, and
the devil stuck fast in the block and the youngster let him also have a
taste of the butt end of his axe on his back. The devil begged and
prayed so nicely to be let loose, but the youngster would not listen to
anything of the kind unless he promised that he would never come there
any more and create any disturbance. He also had to promise that he
would build a bridge over the sound, so that people could pass over it
at all times of the year, and it should be ready when the ice was gone.

"They are very hard conditions," said the devil; but there was no other
way out of it--if the devil wanted to be set free, he would have to
promise it. He bargained, however, that he should have the first soul
that went across the bridge. That was to be the toll.

Yes, he should have that, said the youngster. So the devil was let
loose, and he started home. But the youngster lay down to sleep, and
slept till far into the day.

When the king came to see if he was cut and chopped into small pieces,
he had to wade through all the money before he came to his bedside.
There was money in heaps and in bags which reached far up the wall, and
the youngster lay in bed asleep and snoring hard.

"Lord help me and my daughter," said the king when he saw that the
youngster was alive. Well, all was good and well done, that no one could
deny; but there was no hurry talking of the wedding before the bridge
was ready.

One day the bridge stood ready, and the devil was there waiting for the
toll which he had bargained for.

The youngster wanted the king to go with him and try the bridge, but the
king had no mind to do it. So he mounted a horse himself, and put the
fat dairy-maid in the palace on the pommel in front of him; she looked
almost like a big fir block, and so he rode over the bridge, which
thundered under the horse