<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>XXVIII<br/> <br/> <span class="f8">THE YOUNG FELLOW AND THE DEVIL</span></h2>
<p class="cap"><span class="upper">Once</span> upon a time there was a young fellow, who
was going along cracking nuts. He found a
wormy one, and at the selfsame moment he met the
devil. “Is it true,” said the young fellow, “that the
devil can make himself as small as he likes, and can
slip through the eye of a needle, as the people say?”
“Yes,” answered the devil. “Well, I should certainly
like to see you crawl into that nut!” said the
young fellow. The devil did so. But when he had
crawled through the hole, the young fellow stopped
it up with a bit of wood. “Now I’ve got you!” said
he, and put the nut in his pocket. After he had gone
a while, he came to a smithy, and went in and asked
the smith to break the nut for him. “Why, that is
a mere trifle!” said the smith, took his smallest
hammer, laid the nut on the anvil, and struck it; but
the nut would not break. Then he took a somewhat
larger hammer; but that was not heavy enough
either. Then he took a still larger one, but could do
nothing with it at all, and thereupon he grew angry,
and took his heaviest hammer. “I’ll break you
yet!” said he, and struck it with all his might. And
then the nut cracked, so that half the smithy roof
was carried away, and there was a crash as though
the whole hut were falling in. “I believe the devil<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</SPAN></span>
was in that nut!” said the smith. “And so he was!”
answered the young fellow.</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p class="center">NOTE</p>
<p>This getting the better of the devil, as in “The Young Fellow and
the Devil” (Asbjörnsen and Moe, N.F.E., p. 133, No. 30), already
occurs in the fairy-tale from the “Thousand and One Nights,” where
a spirit slips, not into a nut, but into a bottle, in order to show
what he can do. Ibsen, too, allows Per Gynt to dwell on this fairy-tale.</p>
</div>
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