'No,' said the old dame, 'if you can't tell, I'm sure I can't.'

'Well!' said the Troll, 'I have two brothers in a castle; they are
twelve times as strong as I am, and that's why I was turned out and
had to put up with this farm. They hold that castle, and round it
there is an orchard with apples in it, and whoever eats those apples
sleeps for three days and three nights. If we could only get the lad
to go for the fruit, he wouldn't be able to keep from tasting the
apples, and as soon as ever he fell asleep my brothers would tear him
in pieces.'

The old dame said she would sham sick, and say she could never be
herself again unless she tasted those apples; for she had set her
heart on them.

All this the lad lay and listened to.

When the morning came the old dame was so poorly that she couldn't
utter a word but groans and sighs. She was sure she should never be
well again, unless she had some of those apples that grew in the
orchard near the castle where the man's brothers lived; only she had
no one to send for them.

Oh! the lad was ready to go that instant; but the eleven lions went
with him. So when he came to the orchard, he climbed up into the
apple tree and ate as many apples as he could, and he had scarce got
down before he fell into a deep sleep; but the lions all lay round
him in a ring. The third day came the Troll's brothers, but they did
not come in man's shape. They came snorting like man-eating steeds,