I'll soon stop that--I'll soon put a spoke in your
wheel." So he caught up his steel and threw it over his horse's neck,
and in a trice it stood as if it were nailed to the ground, and
_Boots_ could do as he pleased with it. Then he rode off with it to
the hiding-place where he kept the other two, and then went home. When
he got home, his two brothers made game of him as they had done
before, saying, they could see he had watched the grass well, for he
looked for all the world as if he were walking in his sleep, and many
other spiteful things they said, but _Boots_ gave no heed to them,
only asking them to go and see for themselves; and when they went,
there stood the grass as fine and deep this time as it had been twice
before.

Now, you must know that the king of the country where _Boots_ lived
had a daughter, whom he would only give to the man who could ride up
over the hill of glass, for there was a high, high hill, all of glass,
as smooth and slippery as ice, close by the _King's_ palace. Upon the
tip top of the hill the _King's_ daughter was to sit, with three
golden apples in her lap, and the man who could ride up and carry off
the three golden apples, was to have half the kingdom, and the
_Princess_ to wife. This the _King_ had stuck up on all the
church-doors in his realm, and had given it out in many other
kingdoms besides. Now, this _Princess_ was so lovely that all who set
eyes on her fell over head and ears in love with her whether they
would or no. So I needn't tell you how all the princes and knights who
heard of her were eager to win her to wife, and half the kingdom
beside; and how they came riding from all parts of the world on high
prancing horses, and clad in the grandest clothes, for there wasn't
one of them who hadn't made up his mind that he, and he alone, was to
win the _Princess_.

So when the day of trial came, which the king had fixed, there was
such a crowd of princes and knights under the _Glass Hill_, that it
made one's head whirl to look at them, and everyone in the country
who could even crawl along was off to the hill, for they were all
eager to see the man who was to win the _Princess_. So the two elder
brothers set off with the rest; but as for _Boots_, they said outright
he shouldn't go with them, for if they were seen with such a dirty
changeling, all begrimed with smut from cleaning their shoes and
sifting cinders in the dust-hole, they said folk would make game of
them.

"Very