The youngster went to the smithy and got the smith to help him to make an axe of five hundredweight of iron, and then he set out for the forest and began to make a regular clearance, not only of the pine and the lofty fir trees, but of everything else which was to be found in the king’s forests, and in the neighbours’ as well.  He did not stop to cut the branches or the tops off, but he left them lying there as if a hurricane had blown them down.  He put a proper load on the sledge and put all the horses to it, but they could not even move it; so he took the horses by the heads to give the sledge a start, but he pulled so hard that the horses’ heads came off.  He then turned the horses out of the shafts and drew the load himself.

When he came to the palace, the king and his overlooker were standing in the hall to give him a scolding for having destroyed the forest—­the overlooker had been there and seen what he had been doing.  But when the king saw the youngster dragging half the forest after him, he got both angry and afraid; but he thought he had better be a little careful with him, since he was strong.

“Well, you are a wonderful workman, to be sure,” said the king; “but how much do you eat at a time, because I suppose you are hungry now?”

Oh, when he was to have a proper meal of porridge, it would take twelve barrels of meal to make it, thought the youngster; but when he had put that away, he could wait awhile, of course, for his next meal.

It took some time to boil such a dish of porridge, and meantime he was to bring in a little firewood for the cook.  He put a lot of wood on a sledge, but when he was coming through the door with it he was a little rough and careless again.  The house got almost out of shape, and all the joists creaked; he was very near dragging down the whole palace.  When the porridge was nearly ready, they sent him out to call the people home from the fields.  He shouted so that the mountains and hills around rang with echoes, but the people did not come quick enough for him.  He came to blows with them, and killed twelve of them.

“You have killed twelve men,” said the king; “and you eat for many times twelve; but how many do you work for?”

“For many times twelve as well,” answered the youngster.

When he had finished his porridge, he was to go into the barn to thrash.  He took one of the rafters from the roof and made a flail out of it, and when the roof was about to fall in, he took a big pine tree with branches and all and put it up instead of the rafter.  So he went on thrashing the grain and the straw and the hay all together.  This was doing more damage than good, for the corn and the chaff flew about together, and a cloud of dust arose over the whole palace.

When he had nearly finished thrashing, enemies came into the country, as a war was coming on.  So the king told the youngster that he should take men with him to go and meet the enemy and fight them, for the king thought they would surely kill him.