The oak got bigger and
stouter at every stroke, and the rock grew no softer either.
One day the three brothers thought they, too, would set off and try it.
Their father had not a word to say against it; for even if they did not
get the Princess and half the kingdom, it might happen they would get a
place somewhere with a good master and that was all he wanted. So when
the brothers asked his permission, he consented at once, and Peter, Paul
and Espen set forth.
Well, they had not gone far before they came to a fir wood where at one
side there rose a steep hill, and as they went along they heard
something hewing and hacking away up on the hill among the trees.
"I wonder now what it is that is hewing away up yonder," said Boots.
"You're always so clever with your wondering," laughed Peter and Paul
both at once. "What wonder is it, pray, that a wood cutter should stand
and hack up on a hillside?"
"Still, I'd like to see what it is, after all," said Boots, and up he
went.
"Oh, if you're such a child, 'twill do you good to go and take a
lesson," called out his brothers after him.
But Boots didn't care for what they said; he climbed the steep hillside
towards the spot whence the noise came, and when he reached the place,
what do you think he saw? Why, an axe that stood there hacking and
hewing, all of itself, at the trunk of a fir tree.
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