sherman gave him a ton's weight of blows on the body,
without caring where they fell. The Devil soon presented a piteous
sight, but the fisherman and his boy felt no pity for him, but only
rested awhile, and then began their work afresh. Entreaties were
useless, and at last the Devil promised the fisherman the half of all
his goods if he would only release him from the spell. But the enraged
fisherman would listen to nothing till his own strength failed so
completely that he could no longer move his stick. At length, after a
long discussion, it was arranged that the Old Boy should be released
from the net with the sorcerer's aid, and that the fisherman and his boy
should accompany the Devil to receive his ransom. No doubt he hoped to
get the better of them by some stratagem.

A grand feast was prepared for the guests in the hall of Porgu, which
lasted for a whole week, and there was plenty of everything. The aged
host exhibited his treasures and precious hoards to his visitors, and
made his players perform before the fisherman in their very best style.
One morning the boy Pikker said to the fisherman, "If you are again
feasted and feted to-day, ask for the instrument which is in the iron
chamber behind seven locks." The fisherman took the hint, and in the
middle of the feast, when everybody was half-seas over, he asked to see
the instrument in the secret chamber. The Devil was quite willing, and
he fetched the instrument, and tried to play upon it himself. But
although he blew into it with all his strength, and shifted his fingers
up and down the pipe, he was not able to bring a better tone from it
than the cry of a cat when she is seized by the tail, or the squeaking
of a decoy-pig at a wolf-hunt. The fisherman laughed, and said, "Don't
give yourself so much trouble for nothing. I see well enough that you'll
never make a piper. My boy can manage it much better." "Oho," said the
Devil, "you seem to think that playing this instrument is like playing
the flageolet, and that it is mere child's play. Come, friend, try it;
but if either you or your boy can bring anything like a tune out of the
instrument, I won't be prince of hell any longer. Only just try it,"
said he, handing the instrument to the boy. The boy Pikker took the
instrument, but when he put it to his mouth and blew into it, the walls
of hell shook, and the Devil and his company fell senseless to the
ground and lay as if dead. In place of the boy the old Thunder