well," said _Boots_, "it's all one to me. I can go alone, and
stand or fall by myself."

Now when the two brothers came to the _Hill of Glass_, the knights and
princes were all hard at it, riding their horses till they were all in
a foam; but it was no good, by my troth; for as soon as ever the
horses set foot on the hill, down they slipped, and there wasn't one
who could get a yard or two up; and no wonder, for the hill was as
smooth as a sheet of glass, and as steep as a house-wall. But all were
eager to have the _Princess_ and half the kingdom. So they rode and
slipped, and slipped and rode, and still it was the same story over
again. At last all their horses were so weary that they could scarce
lift a leg, and in such a sweat that the lather dripped from them, and
so the knights had to give up trying any more. So the king was just
thinking that he would proclaim a new trial for the next day, to see
if they would have better luck, when all at once a knight came riding
up on so brave a steed, that no one had ever seen the like of it in
his born days, and the knight had mail of brass, and the horse a brass
bit in his mouth, so bright that the sunbeams shone from it. Then all
the others called out to him he might just as well spare himself the
trouble of riding at the Hill, for it would lead to no good; but he
gave no heed to them, and put his horse at the hill, and went up it
like nothing for a good way, about a third of the height; and when he
had got so far, he turned his horse round and rode down again. So
lovely a knight the _Princess_ thought she had never yet seen; and
while he was riding, she sat and thought to herself:

"Would to heaven he might only come up and down the other side."

And when she saw him turning back, she threw down one of the golden
apples after him, and it rolled down into his shoe. But when he got to
the bottom of the hill, he rode off so fast that no one could tell
what had become of him. That evening all the knights and princes were
to go before the king, that he who had ridden so far up the hill might
show the apple which the _Princess_ had thrown, but there was no one
who had anything to show. One after the other they all came, but not a
man of them could show the apple.

At even the brothers of _Boots_ came home too, and had such a long
story to tell about the riding up the hill.

"First of all," they said, "there was not one of the whole lot who
could get so much as a stride up;