Soria Moria Castle

In a small cottage at the edge of a dark forest there lived a poor couple and their son. The boy was called Halvor. He was kind, but he would never lift a finger for any work. When his mother asked him to chop wood, he sat and poked in the ashes by the stove. When his father asked him to mind the goat, he still sat poking in the ashes by the stove. His parents sent him out to the smith, the farmer, the tailor, but after a day or two he always came home again and crept back to the hearth. There he sat in the warmth and blew on the embers until his cheeks turned red.

One morning a skipper knocked on the door. He had a sun-browned face and salt spray in his beard. 'Will you come to sea, boy?' he said. 'Will you see strange lands?' Halvor stood up so quickly that the ashes flew about his feet. He wanted to. He wanted to more than anything else. He packed his little bundle and followed the skipper down to the shore. They sailed for many days across a blue sea. Then a great storm came. The waves struck over the deck, the wind howled in the sails, and when the storm at last lay down, no one knew any longer where they were. They had drifted to a strange coast that nobody recognized.

The wind had fallen still, and the ship rocked quietly on the waves. Halvor asked for leave to go ashore and look around. The skipper saw his ragged clothes and shook his head, but Halvor stood his ground and was let go. He wandered across great green meadows, past wheat fields shining gold in the sun, but he met not a single soul. At last he came out on a broad and even highroad. Halvor followed it all day long. As evening fell he saw far away a great castle, and the sun glimmered in its windows as if they were made of gold.

In the castle kitchen a great fire was blazing, but no one was to be seen. There were vessels of silver and dishes of gold on the tables, but not a soul stirred. Halvor opened a door, and behind it sat a princess at a spinning-wheel. When she saw him she went quite white in the face. 'Dare Christian folk come hither?' she whispered. 'Hurry away from here. Here lives a troll with three heads, and it will swallow you alive.' But Halvor was hungry after the long day, and far too tired to be afraid. 'I have done no harm,' he said. 'And I am so hungry that I simply must have food.'