nd knew there was
not a living soul in it, until you were well over the ridge and had
come down on the other side. But they went on, and in a little while
they came to a great house which was all painted red.

"What's the good?" said the old dame. "We daren't go in, for here the
_Trolls_ live."

"Don't say so; we must go in. There must be men where the lights shine
so," said the lad. So in he went, and his mother after him, but he had
scarce opened the door before she swooned away, for there she saw a
great stout man, at least twenty feet high, sitting on the bench.

"Good evening, grandfather!" said the lad.

"Well, here I've sat three hundred years," said the man who sat on the
bench, "and no one has ever come and called me grandfather before."
Then the lad sat down by the man's side, and began to talk to him as
if they had been old friends.

"But what's come over your mother?" said the man, after they had
chatted a while. "I think she swooned away; you had better look after
her."

So the lad went and took hold of the old dame, and dragged her up the
hall along the floor. That brought her to herself, and she kicked and
scratched, and flung herself about, and at last sat down upon a heap
of firewood in the corner; but she was so frightened that she scarce
dared to look one in the face.

After a while, the lad asked if they could spend the night there.

"Yes, to be sure," said the man.

So they went on talking again, but the lad soon got hungry, and wanted
to know if they could get food as well as lodging.

"Of course," said the man, "that might be got too." And after he had
sat a while longer, he rose up and threw six loads of dry pitch-pine
on the fire. This made the old hag still more afraid.

"Oh! now he's going to roast us alive," she said, in the corner where
she sat.

And when the wood had burned down to glowing embers, up got the man
and strode out of his house.

"Heaven bless and help us! what a stout heart you have got!" said the
old dame. "Don't you see we have got amongst _Trolls_?"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the lad; "no harm if we have."

In a little while, back came the man with an ox so fat and big, the
lad had never seen its like, and he gave it one blow with his fist
under the ear, and down it fell dead on the floor. When that was done,
he took it up by all the four legs and laid it on the glowing embers,
and turned it and twisted it about till it was burnt brown outside.
After tha