After the King had issued this proclamation, many young knights and champions started to search for the three princesses. In the king's own court, there were two foreign princes who also started to search for the princesses.
Meanwhile, far far away, a widow lived in the deep wild forests. The widow had a son. She also had three hogs.
The son was strong, well built and he feared nothing. So during the day, the widow's son attended to the three hogs. The son took the hogs to the forest and there, while the hogs roamed all over the forest, the son made himself. a rustic pipe because he was interested in music. The son played beautiful tunes on the pipe all through the day.
One day when the young lad was in the forest, an old man with a big bushy bag beard that reached down to his waist, came towards the young lad. The old man had a great dog with him.
As soon as the young lad saw the dog, the boy wanted the dog for company.
It almost seemed like the old man could read the thoughts of the young boy. The old man nodded at the young man eagerly. “This is the very reason that I have come here. I wanted to exchange this dog for one of your hogs.”
The boy immediately agreed to the bargain.
Then the old man explained about the dog. “The name of this dog is ‘Hold In’. And whenever you ask him to hold on to something, the dog will stick to it, and never let it go, even if it were a huge giant.”
The boy felt that this was an excellent bargain and happily gave one of his hogs to the old man and took the dog back home with him.
Adapted from Swedish Fairy Tales
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