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Tale Summary

An old beggar woman is out begging with her son. On their way home, they find a blue belt lying at a place where two paths meet. The woman warns the lad not to pick up the belt in case it contains witchcraft, but he sneaks off to retrieve it. He ties the belt around his waist and immediately feels strong. The lad sees a house on the other side of the hill, which his mother warns him is the home of a troll, but he convinces her to enter to stay for the night. Inside, a twenty-foot-tall troll serves them dinner and shows them to their beds.

Lying awake at night, the lad overhears the troll telling his mother that the two of them could live happily together if they could be rid of the lad. The troll plans to take the lad out to the quarry with him and roll a rock on top of him. The next day, the troll takes the lad out to the quarry and causes a rock to roll toward the lad, but the lad grabs it and lets it roll past. The lad then tricks the troll into standing where the lad had stood, and rolls a rock onto the troll, breaking the troll’s leg. The lad takes the troll home and puts him to bed.

The next night, the troll and the lad’s mother discuss other ways to get rid of him. They plan for the woman to feign illness and to claim that only lion’s milk will make her better so that the lad will be torn to pieces trying to milk the lions in the garden. The next day, however, the lad avoids being eaten by dashing the biggest lion against the stones, causing the remaining lions to submit to him. The lad returns with the milk and the lions attack the troll until the lad orders them to stop.

The troll and the lad’s mother next plot to send the lad to fetch some apples for his mother from a castle orchard, where he will fall asleep for three days and three nights after eating some of the fruit and then will be torn to pieces by the troll’s two brothers. The lad eats the apples, but the lions surround and protect him. When the lad wakes, a maiden invites him into the castle. The maiden tells the lad that she is the King of Arabia’s daughter, who had been kidnapped by the trolls. The lad offers to take the Princess as his wife. The Princess asks the lad if he is man enough to wield one of the trolls’ swords hanging in the great hall, and he leaps up to grab the sword with so much force that the hall shakes.

The Princess eventually decides to return home, and the lad remembers the apples that his mother had asked him to fetch for her. He returns home to find that his mother and the troll are both healthy. He offers to bring them to live in the castle with him. On the way to the castle, the lad confides to his mother that it is the blue belt, which he still wears around his waist, that made him so strong. The woman tears off the belt and, with the troll’s encouragement, burns out his eyes and sends him adrift in a small boat. The lions bring the boat ashore and place him on a bed of feathers under a fir tree. The lions bring the lad to a magical spring that restores his sight, and the lions come together to make a raft and swim him to the mainland. The lad sneaks into the castle and sees his belt hanging in the kitchen. He seizes the belt, and with his strength returned, punishes the troll by burning his eyes out and setting him adrift.

With four ships, the lad sets out for Arabia to find the Princess. While waiting out the wind on a rocky island, the sailors find a large egg, but none of them can crack its shell. The lad cracks the egg with the sword he had found in the castle’s great hall, and a chicken the size of an elephant emerges. The men sail to Arabia in twenty-three hours. Upon their arrival, the lad orders the sailors to sit down under a sandhill, beneath a fir tree, so that they cannot see the ships. A large bird flying overhead drops an island onto the fleet and sinks the ships. The bird flies up to the sandhill and the lad kills it with the sword.

The King of Arabia has hidden the Princess and has promised her hand in marriage to anyone who finds her. The lad buys a white bear skin. Dressed as a bear and led on a chain by one of his captains, he plays pranks throughout the town. A messenger orders the “bear” to the castle for the King to see, since it has made such fun in the town. The King orders his men not to laugh so that they will not be torn to pieces by the “bear.” One of the King’s maids enters and begins to laugh at and make fun of the “bear,” and the “bear” tears her to pieces. The King arranges for a bed to be made for the “bear” to sleep in the castle. At midnight, the King brings the “bear” to a house in the sea, in which he has hidden the Princess. The “bear” curls up by the stove as if to sleep, but as soon as the King leaves, the “bear” asks the Princess to undo his collar. His identity now revealed, the lad decides to earn the Princess’s hand a second time and is led out of the castle in his bear disguise the next morning.

Now dressed as a prince, the beggar lad returns to the King to ask for his daughter and is told that he forfeits his life if she is not found within twenty-four hours. The lad dances until there is only one hour left, and then follows the same path by which the King had led him to the Princess in his “bear” disguise. With three minutes left, the lad asks for the key to the house floating in the sea, but the King delays and claims he has no key. The lad kicks down the door to reveal the Princess. The Princess and the lad are married soon after.

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