The Old Dame and her Hen is a Norwegian Fairy Tale collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe and published in their Norwegian Folktales collection (number 35). Originally titled The Hen is Tripping in the Mountain (Norwegian: Høna tripper i berget), it was translated into English by Sir George Webbe Dasent and published in his Popular Tales from the Norse
book. The tale is also known as The Three Sisters Who Were Taken into the Mountain.
Once upon a time there was an old widow who lived under a hillside with her three daughters. She was so poor her only livestock was one single hen.
One day, her hen vanishes. The old woman looks everywhere but she is unable to find it, so she asks her eldest daughter to see if she can find the missing hen. The daughter searches everywhere to no avail and is about to give up when she hears one voice shouting "Your hen trips inside the hill!" repeatedly from one cleft in the rock. The girl goes into the cleft to investigate, and she falls through a trapdoor into an underground crypt. The girl walks down a hall, checking in each room, and in the innermost room she meets an ugly troll. The troll asks if she will be his sweetheart, and the girl refuses. The troll responds by killing her and throwing her corpse into a cellar.
Meanwhile, the old widow gets tired of waiting for her eldest's return, so she asks her second daughter to look for her older sister, keeping an eye out for their hen. The middle daughter goes out and suffers the same fate as her sister.
After a while, the old widow sends her youngest daughter out. The girl also finds the cleft in the rock and falls into the trapdoor; but unlike her sisters, she looks around the vault carefully. She finds the cellar keeping her sisters' corpses, and she has barely time to shut the trapdoor before the troll finds her and asks her to be his sweetheart. Out of a sense of self-preservation, the daughter agrees.
The troll showers the girl with gifts and fulfills every wish of hers... except for going outside, seeing her mother again, or even talking to someone. After a little while the troll notices his "sweetheart" has become visibly downcast and depressed, so he asks what the matter is. The girl answers she is worried about her poor, lonely mother. The troll says she can stuff some food and drink into a sack, and he will carry it to her mother. The girl happily agrees, but she stuffs the sack with gold and silver, and covers the loot with a little food. Then she tells the troll the sack is ready, but he must not peek into it.
The troll promises he will not and sets off. However, after giving some few steps he wonders why the sack is so heavy. The troll decides to see what there it is inside, but the girl -who was watching him through a chink in the trapdoor- shouts she can see him before he unties the mouth of the sack. The troll throws the sack back over his shoulder, and without daring to try to look in it again, he carries it to her house.
Later, one billy-goat drops into the trapdoor and is promptly beheaded by the furious and paranoid troll. The daughter becomes upset because the goat could have given her company. The troll says it is no issue, and he grabs a flask, puts the goat's head and body together, and smears the animal with some ointment out of the flask. Immediately the goat becomes alive and completely healthy again. The girl finds this extremely interesting and devises a plan.
The next time the troll is away, the girl uses his ointment to resurrect her older sister. Then she stuffs her sister in a sack and covers her with a little food. When the troll comes back, she asks him to take another sack full of food to her mother. On the way, the troll tries to look in the sack, but the older sister -mimicking her sister's voice- yells "I see what you're at!" before the troll unties the mouth of the cask. Believing his "sweetheart" is somehow watching him, the troll takes the sack to the old woman's hutch.
Later, the little daughter rescues her middle sister using the same method, except she also stuffs the sack with gold and silver.
Sometime later, when the troll is going out for the day, the girl says she is sick and needs to rest, so he should not bother coming back before midnight because supper will not be ready yet. When the troll is finally gone, she builds a dummy using her clothes, straw, and a besom, and runs off. Before meeting her mother and sisters, though, she hires a sharpshooter to stay in the cottage with them.
When the clock strikes twelve, the troll goes back home, finds the "girl" standing by the chimney, and demands food. When the "girl" fails to answer, the troll gives it a slap in the "face" which scatters straw all over the room. The troll realizes he has been tricked and runs off to the cottage to punish the girl. When he reaches the cottage, though, the sharp-shooter fires one shoot. He misses, but the troll mistakes the gunshot for a thunder and runs away. The troll hurries back home, but just as he gets to the trapdoor, the sun rises and the troll bursts.
The tale is in the Public Domain and can be read in Project Gutenberg and the SurLaLune site and here. It can be read in the original language here-
The tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as a Type 311: "Rescue by the Sister."
Tropes:
- Adaptation Title Change: The tale's original title Høna tripper i berget (The Hen is Tripping in the Mountain) was changed by George Dasent.
- All Trolls Are Different: The Man o' the Hill is sometimes called an ogre, but he has all the traits of a Norwegian troll: he is a member of the "hill-folk", he lives underground, he is harmed by sunlight, he hoards riches, he is amazingly strong and just as dumb.
- Back from the Dead: The youngest daughter uses the troll's secret ointment to revive her murdered sisters.
- Big Bad: The Man o' the Hill murders the old woman's older daughters and holds their little sister captive, forcing her to be his girlfriend (or servant).
- Beneath the Earth: The Man o' the Hill lives in a large cavern, full of chambers, corridors and trapdoors, beneath a hill.
- The Bluebeard: Variant. As exploring the troll's lair, the main character finds her sisters' corpses hidden in a cellar. She runs into the troll straight afterwards, and he asks if she will be his "sweetheart". The girl realizes her sisters were murdered because they turned him down, so she pretends to accept as she figures out a way to escape.
- Container Cling: The youngest daughter smuggles her sisters out of the troll's lair by getting them in sacks and asking the troll to carry food to her aging mother. When the troll wants to peek inside the sack to find out why it is so heavy, the daughter -or her sister mimicking her voice- shouts "I'm seeing you", and the troll relents.
- Cue the Sun: Before the troll can find shelter in his vault, the sun rises and kills him.
- Disappeared Dad: The three sisters' father passed away some time before the beginning of the story.
- Domestic Abuse: The Man o' the Hill is a typical abuser: he showers the youngest daughter with gifts after she has "agreed" to be his "sweetheart", but he holds her against her will, does not allow her to go out and see her family, and is willing to hit her if she fails to make lunch or answer when she is talked to. And he would have killed her on the spot if she had turned him down.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: The angry troll rips the sisters' heads off their shoulders and tosses the bodies into a cellar, where they are left to rot.
- Fear of Thunder: The enormous and violent troll flees terrified when he mistakes the bang of a huntsman's shotgun for the crack of a thunder.
- Guile Hero: The little daughter triumphs over the incredibly strong and dangerously hot-tempered troll by being observant, patient and clever.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: The troll is prone to flying into a rage for the smallest reason. He kills two women because they did not want to be his "sweethearts", he kills one goat because the unlucky beast wandered into his lair by accident, and he slaps who he believes to be his "sweetheart" because she is not talking back.
- Kick the Dog: When a harmless billygoat falls into the trap door, the troll gets so mad at the harmless animal for accidentally dropping into his home that he whips up the goat and wrings its head off.
- Nameless Narrative: Neither the old widow, nor her daughters, nor the troll are given names in the story.
- Obliviously Evil: The Man o' the Hill does not appear to get that he is doing anything wrong.
- Off with His Head!: The troll rips the older sisters' heads off because they turned him down and crushes a goat's head because the animal annoyed him.
- Panacea: The troll's ointment can heal wounds -and presumably rotting- and bring living beings back to life.
- Rule of Three:
- The old widow has three daughters.
- Each daughter looks for the missing hen, falls into the trap door and runs into the troll.
- The youngest daughter tricks the troll into carrying a sack to her mother three times.
- The troll demands one answer three times before slapping the girl and realizing it is a straw dummy.
- Rule of Seven: The old widow waits in vain "seven lengths and seven breadths" for her second daughter's return.
- Secondary Character Title: Neither the old woman nor the hen plays any kind of important role.
- Sleeping Dummy: The youngest daughter stuffs her clothes with straw, sticks up the dummy by the chimney and ties a besom to its hand so it looked like she was standing there. Then she runs away.
- Weakened by the Light: The troll does not manage to go back to his home before the dawn, and his body bursts when the sun rises.
- Wealthy Ever After: Before fleeing from the troll, the girl steals enough gold and silver to set her family up for life.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- The titular hen goes missing at the beginning of the tale, and nobody can find it (but they are caught by a troll as looking for it).
- The billygoat who falls into the troll's lair is not mentioned again after being revived, despite the girl claiming to want a playmate.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: The girl tricks the troll into not going back home before midnight. When the clock strikes twelve, he returns, and after arguing with a straw dummy, realizes he has been fooled.
- Youngest Child Wins: The oldest and middle daughters are killed by the troll. The youngest daughter manages to bring her sisters back to life, steal the troll's riches and escape from his dungeon after tricking him repeatedly.
