Prevod

Once upon a time there was a King who had a daughter, and she was such a dreadful liar that no one could be worse. So he proclaimed that whoever could tell a lie that made her call him a liar should have both her and half the kingdom. Many tried, for everyone wanted the Princess and half the kingdom, but they all failed.

Now there were also three brothers who meant to try their luck. The two eldest went first, but they fared no better than all the rest. Then it was Askeladden’s turn to set out, and he found the Princess in the cowshed. “Good day!” she said, “and thank you for your company last time.” “Your cowshed is not as big as ours, all the same!” she said, “for when a herdsman stands at either end blowing a goat’s horn, they cannot hear each other.” “Oh, indeed it is,” said Askeladden. “Ours is much bigger! For when a cow conceives at one end, she does not calve until she reaches the other.” “Is that so?” said the Princess. “But your ox is not as big as ours, all the same. There he is! When a man sits on each horn, they cannot reach each other with a measuring pole.” “Pooh!” said Askeladden. “We have an ox so big that when a man sits on each horn blowing a trumpet, they cannot hear each other.” “Is that so?” said the Princess. “But you do not have as much milk as we do, all the same,” she said, “for we milk into great pails and carry them indoors and pour the milk into great pots and make great cheeses.” “Oh, we milk into great vats and cart them indoors and pour the milk into great brewing pans, and make cheeses as big as great houses. And we have a dun mare to tread the cheese together. But once she foaled in the cheese, and when we had been eating it for seven years, we came upon a great dun horse. Once I was driving him to the mill when his backbone snapped, but I knew what to do: I took a young spruce and put it into him for a backbone, and he never had another as long as we kept him. But that spruce grew so tall that I climbed up it all the way to Heaven, and when I got there, the Virgin Mary sat spinning bristly ropes out of porridge soot.

All at once the spruce snapped, and I could not get down again. But the Virgin Mary lowered me down on one of those ropes, and I landed right in the middle of a fox’s den, where my mother and your father sat mending shoes. And all at once my mother gave your father such a clout that the scabs flew off him.” “That’s a lie!” said the Princess. “My father has never had scabs in all his life.”