Knut had not the heart to tease them any longer. He changed the note to _pu_ and the elves became almost crazy with joy. They leaped so high in the air that they nearly overtook the larks, and as they came down, some of them alighted upon Knut and he had to shake them off. He did not notice that one elf had fallen into his pocket and remained there.
"Good-bye, little elves," said Knut as he hastily set off again on his way through the forest.
"I must watch out well for that other troll, the Forest King," thought Knut. "He is said to be the worst of all. Where was I in the Catechism? Oh, yes. 'What does that mean?'"
After a while Knut came to a swamp at the roadside where cloudberries grew in profusion.
"It can't be wrong to pick a few of these berries as I pass by, since I sha'n't have any food until four o'clock this afternoon," thought Knut. To reach the swamp he had to climb over a huge fallen pine-tree, which lay in the way. Scarcely did he find himself clambering across its gnarly trunk and thick close branches than the pine-tree, to Knut's great fright, raised itself high in air, and roared with a gruff voice:
"Good-day, Knut Spelevink. Why do you look so poorly to-day?"
Knut, hanging over the road in the pine-tree's top, still found courage to answer:
"Why shouldn't I look poorly when I have had nothing to eat since yesterday noon except Catechism, and bar iron, and frozen quicksilver and a gnat's leg?"
"Well, why did you interrupt my midday nap?" asked the pine-tree. "Don't you know that I am the King of the Forest and rule over all the trees and swamps for seven times seven miles around! Here you see my palace. Haven't I a fine place to live in?"
Knut saw nothing but a bleak wilderness, so did not answer the question but ventured to inquire most humbly if he might not get down and pick some cloudberries to eat.
"What is that? Cloudberries?" roared the Forest King. "Take a fir-tree for a ladle and ladle into yourself seven cartloads of swamp mud. That is what I call a regular meal. It is my favorite food."
"Perhaps you would give me one load of apple marmalade, and a moderately big ditch full of wild honey instead!" suggested merry Knut.
"Apple marmalade? Humph! I shall make marmalade of you for disturbing me in my nap. My Lord Eagle, I give the boy to you. You can tear him into Scotch collops for your young ones."