"'Nay, I daren't; he is so hasty,' said the sister.

"'Well! I'm hastier still,' said the King, 'and if you don't wake him, I will,' and with that he tapped his side where his knife hung.

Tales from the Fjeld — Part 58

"Well! she would go and wake him; but Peik turned hastily in his bed, drew out a little knife, and ripped open the bladder in her bosom, so that a stream of blood gushed out, and down she fell on the floor, as though she were dead.

Tales from the Fjeld — Part 58

"'What a dare devil you are, Peik,' said the King, 'if you haven't stabbed your sister to death, and here I stood by and saw it with my own eyes.'

Tales from the Fjeld — Part 58

"'There's no risk with her body so long as there's breath in my nostrils;' and with that he pulled out a ramshorn, and began to toot upon it, and when he had tooted a bridal tune, he put the end to her body, and blew life into her again, and up she rose as though there was naught the matter with her.

"'Bless me, Peik! can you kill folk and blow life into them again? Can you do that?' said the King.

"'Why!' said Peik, 'how could I get on at all if I couldn't? I'm always killing everyone I come near; don't you know I'm very hasty.'

"'So am I hot-tempered,' said the King, 'and that horn I must have; I'll give you a hundred dollars for it, and besides I'll forgive you for cheating me out of my horse, and for fooling me about the pot and the block, and all else.'

"Peik was very loth to part with it, but for his sake he would let him have it, and so the King went off home with it, and he had hardly got back before he must try it. So he fell a-wrangling and quarrelling with the Queen and his eldest daughter, and they paid him back in the same coin; but before they knew a word about it he whipped out his knife and cut their throats, so that they fell down stone dead, and everyone else ran out of the room, they were so afraid.

"The King walked and paced about the floor for a while, and kept chattering that there was no harm done, so long as there was breath in him, and a pack of such stuff which had flowed out of Peik's mouth, and then he pulled out the horn and began to blow 'Toot-i-too, Toot-i-too,' but though he blew and tooted as hard as he could all that day and the next too, he couldn't blow life into them again. Dead they were, and dead they stayed, both the Queen and his daughter, and he was forced to buy graves for them in the churchyard, and to spend money on their funeral ale into the bargain.