Origins and setting
“The Master Maid” (Mestermøya) is a Norwegian wonder tale gathered in the nineteenth century. It belongs to the “clever bride” cycle: a prince enters the service of a man-eating giant who sets impossible tasks; a captive maiden—so skilful that even trolls mutter her name with respect—secretly helps him; together they flee, throwing behind them magical obstacles to foil pursuit; and, after an enchanted forgetfulness, the maiden wins him back by wit at a wedding feast. The dramatis personae are crisp: a king with three sons, the youngest called Boots for his plain sense and stout footwear; a Giant who keeps house like a wolf; the cunning Master Maid; and three faithful creatures who owe the hero favours. The tale’s stations fall cleanly: the stoning road avoided, the six impossible chores, the flight (water—forest—mountain), the forget-me draught, and the three-night recognition.
The tale
I. The youngest rides out
A king had three sons. The elder two were smooth and showy; the youngest, Boots, was quiet, handy, and inclined to try what others only talked of. Word went through the valleys of a Giant who paid high wages to those who could do his bidding for three days—and ate those who failed.
“Don’t be a fool,” said the elder brothers, polishing their spurs.
“Give me leave, father, and a little food,” said Boots, buckling on his old boots. “I’ll bring back news or nothing.”
He rode a farm horse up into the blue hills until the road turned black with fir-needles and the air smelt of iron. There stood the Giant’s house—timbers like ship masts, door like a barn gate. The Giant himself opened, shoulders broad as a porch, nose long as a scythe.
“Whither, little fly?” rumbled he.
“To take service,” said Boots, steady enough.
“Good;” grinned the Giant, showing yellow teeth. “Three days’ work. Fail once and I’ll eat you. Do as much as the Master Maid, and I’ll pay you in gold.”
At that name—the Master Maid—a shadow stirred in the house, but Boots only nodded.
II. The Master Maid behind the door
He had not warmed his hands at the hearth before a voice, soft and quick, spoke from the buttery:
“Do you want to live, Christian man? Then do nothing as he tells you—do all as I tell you.”
He turned and saw a maiden in a plain kirtle, eyes bright as frost—the Master Maid.
“He will set you to impossible tasks,” she said. “When he says ‘Do it like the Master Maid,’ say ‘I can, if I have what the Master Maid has.’ Then come here. I’ll lend you the right things and the right words. And hide when he sniffs; he smells Christian blood like a dog.”
Boots bowed his thanks and went out as the Giant stamped back in, snuffing.
“Faugh! Here’s a whiff of Christian man!”
“Only a sparrow down the chimney,” said the Master Maid, smooth as cream.
The Giant scowled at Boots. “To work! Clean out the byre till the floor shines, and do it as the Master Maid.”
Boots scratched his head. “Aye—if I have what the Master Maid has.”
“Take it then,” snarled the Giant, flinging him a three-tined fork that made muck breed wherever it touched.
Boots lugged the devilish thing to the buttery. The Master Maid laughed under her breath, handed him a spade and a hatchet.
“Knock a hole in the back wall, turn the brook through, and let water do what forks never can.”
He did as bid; the stream sang through; the dung floated out; the byre shone so you could see your face in it. When the Giant came home, he blinked.
“You’ve been talking to the Master Maid,” he growled.
“Not I,” said Boots, looking dull.
“We’ll see to-morrow.”
Next day: “Fetch water in this,” said the Giant, tossing a sieve, “and fill the great copper—do it as the Master Maid.”
“Aye, if I have what the Master Maid has.”
The Master Maid smeared ash-paste and fresh cow-dung round the rim and into every mesh.
“Now the holes will remember to be shut. Say, ‘Stand still, copper; fill, spring!’”
The sieve held; the copper filled; the Giant came home sour as whey.
“You’ve been talking to the Master Maid.”
“Not I.”
Third day: “Go to my woodlot and fell and stack a hundred cords by nightfall—as the Master Maid.”
“If I have what the Master Maid has.”
She put into his hand a whetstone that kept an edge like winter and a little axe that cut of itself if you said, “Lay to, little axe; lie still, little axe.” By evening the stacks stood neat as loaves. The Giant sniffed, glowered, said nothing.
Fourth: “Fetch my mare from the hill. She’ll eat you if you bungle. Bring her home as the Master Maid.”
“If I have—”
“You’ll have twelve iron rods,” said the Master Maid, “and this bridle. Strike till the rods are gone; when the last breaks, clap on the bridle. She’ll go as meek as a lamb.”
Boots did it: eleven rods snapped like straws; at the twelfth, the mare swooned; the bridle bit; home she came with her mane like lightning.
Fifth: The Giant’s voice was sweet, which is when wolves smile. “Go home now and kill the Master Maid for supper. Scald her clean, cut her neat, and mind the gravy doesn’t burn. Do it—as the Master Maid.”
Boots’ hands went cold, but he kept his face like a door.
“Aye—if I have what the Master Maid has.”
He went to the buttery. The Master Maid’s eyes were like flint. “Now we must fly. Kill the calf; dress it in my gown; lay it in my bed; set the pot to sing and the ladle to stir. Bring me the Giant’s golden egg, his self-spreading cloth, and the silver spoon that serves by itself.”
By dusk the house smelt of broth; a white hand showed above the coverlet (a calf’s hoof wrapped in linen); the spoon stirred; the pot sang. Boots led the Giant’s fastest mare to the door. The Master Maid sprang up behind him; they rode.
III. The Giant gives chase
Home stomped the Giant, licking his lips. He lifted the coverlet, patted the “hand,” smacked his chops… and felt hoof.
“Calf!” he roared, and the rafters trembled. “They’ve tricked me!” He ran to the yard, whistled his seven-league boots to his feet, and pounded after them.
“He comes,” said the Master Maid, glancing back. “When I say, throw what I hand you.” She took from her pocket a black flask.
“Now!—the drop of water!”
Boots flung it. Behind them sprang a lake, wide and blue, swallowing the path. The Giant came up, drank and drank—bent like a bellows—and drank it dry. On he thundered.
“Now—the coal of fire!”
Boots tossed it. A forest of flame leapt up, trunks roaring. The Giant stamped and blew and snorted till the fire sank to coals; his beard was singed to stubble, but on he came.
“Now—the lump of stone!”
Boots threw it down. It heaved itself into a mountain of glass, sheer and smooth. The Giant clawed and scrabbled, slid and howled, tore his fingers to tatters, and at last fell backward; the ground shook; he lay still.
“That’s done,” said the Master Maid quietly. “But we must still be wise.”
IV. “Mind you neither eat, nor drink, nor kiss”
They rode into a kingdom with red roofs and slow bells. On a slope above the town the Master Maid reined in.
“Listen, my heart, and heed me,” she said, laying her hand on Boots’s arm. “Ride to your father’s hall and tell him you’re safe. But eat nothing, drink nothing, and kiss no one, however sweet. They keep a forget-me draught for such as you. Come back here, and we’ll go to church together and be wed.”
“I’ll remember,” said Boots, and truly meant it.
He rode down into trumpets and tears; the king wept on his neck; the court crowded close; and a princess, fair enough, came forward with a golden cup.
“Drink, brave wanderer,” she smiled.
Boots was about to refuse when his oldest brother clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t shame the house, man!” Boots took a sip—only a sip—and the draught went through him like a wind. He forgot the Giant, the mare, the forest of fire, and most of all the Master Maid. He remembered only that the princess’s hand was soft and that his father was talking of wedding bells.
On the hill above the town the Master Maid waited until the thrushes stopped. She saw torches in the king’s windows and understood.
“Very well,” she said, not weeping. “We will do it in the long way.”
She took a house of her own in the town—so fair that folk stared—and from her chest she drew three golden nuts.
V. Three nights; three wonders
When the royal banns were cried, the Master Maid cracked the first golden nut. Out came a golden spinning-wheel, that whirred of itself and spun fine thread like frost.
She set it in the window. The princess saw and sent her maids to bargain.
“I will sell,” said the Master Maid, “for the favour of sitting this night outside the bride-chamber door.”
The princess, greedy, agreed. That night the Master Maid sat on the threshold and said softly, with her cheek to the jamb:
“Sleep not, true love—
remember the lake and the fire,
the glass-mountain, rider and rideress.”
But the princess had slipped another drop of forget-me on the prince’s lips; he slept like a stone and heard nothing. The wheel was carried away.
Next day she cracked the second nut. Out came a golden hen with twelve golden chickens that pecked golden corn from a golden dish and clucked like little bells. The court gasped; again the princess bargained; again the Master Maid bought the right to sit by the door.
That night, nearer still, she whispered:
“Sleep not, true love—
remember the axe and the sieve,
the river that ran through dung,
and the mare that bowed her head.”
But the draught was strong; he slept on. The hen and chickens went to the palace.
On the third day she cracked the last nut. Out rolled a golden apple that ran from hand to hand and never fell and never tired. The princess, half mad to own everything that shone, promised the Master Maid not the threshold, but the bed-foot itself for an hour.
At midnight the Master Maid stood by the bed and spoke not in riddles but in truth:
“Boots, Boots—my heart, wake and look.
I am the Master Maid.
You said you’d neither eat nor drink nor kiss,
and you sipped and forgot me.
Wake now and remember.
Lake—fire—glass.
Axes that laid to; sieves that held;
mare that bent her proud neck.
My hand on your arm.
Wake.”
Whether the draught was spent, whether love is simply stronger than sleep on the third time of asking, no one can say; but Boots opened his eyes as if something had unlatched, and all at once everything came back—the Giant’s hall, the smell of firs burning, the splash of the salmon, the taste of ash-paste, and this face, this voice.
He caught her hands. “Master Maid!”
She smiled then, at last. “So. Now we’ll have judgment.”
VI. Judgment and wedding
In the morning the Master Maid sent word to the king that a stranger begged leave to put a question of law. She stood in the hall with her head high and told a tale—but thinly veiled.
“There was once a man who lost his ship and all that was in it. Another found it and loaded it with his own, but when the owner came, he knew his ship by the very planks. Tell me, whose ship is it—the finder’s or the owner’s?”
“The owner’s,” said the king without thinking. “Right belongs where it began.”
“Even if the finder has filled it with his own things?”
“Even so.”
“Then take back your son, sir,” said the Master Maid, stepping aside. Boots came forward, colour high, eyes clear. The court murmured; the princess went white; and the old king, who was not so foolish as his pride, stood up and kissed the Master Maid’s brow.
“Daughter, I was blind. Will you mend our house?”
The princess who had poured the draught was sent home with her toys; the golden wheel, the golden chickens, and the golden apple came to the Master Maid’s keeping. They kept the wedding that very week. At table Boots raised his cup and said:
“To the Master Maid—
who can do what cannot be done,
and remember what must not be forgotten.”
VII. What came after
They sent for Boots’s old farm horse, now fat as a friar, and found room in the king’s stable for the mare that bowed her head. The self-spreading cloth kept the larder honest; the silver spoon stirred when the cook’s hands were tired; and if any lad in the kitchen grew too big for his boots, the Master Maid would set him to carry water in a sieve until he learned where the ash-paste was kept.
As for the Giant, his bones lay under the glass mountain; when the sun shone, the hill burned like a bell, and shepherds nodded toward it and said, “There lies a debt paid in full.”
And sometimes, on winter nights, the king would say to the children by the fire, “Mind this: strength is good, luck is better, but best of all is a wise friend—especially if she calls herself the Master Maid.”
Iconic lines remembered in the telling
- “Do you want to live, Christian man? Then do nothing as he tells you—do all as I tell you.”
- “Do it—as the Master Maid.”
- “Lay to, little axe; lie still, little axe.”
- “Now!—the drop of water… the coal of fire… the lump of stone!”
- “Eat nothing, drink nothing, and kiss no one.”
- “Sleep not, true love—remember the lake and the fire, the glass-mountain.”
- “Right belongs where it began.”
- “To the Master Maid—who can do what cannot be done.”
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