Tatterhood by Margrete Lamond Page A

who comes after me will be more pleasant.’
    In a while, the queen had another little girl. This baby was so lovely and sweet, so blithe and shimmery and delightful, that the queen could scarcely bear to be parted from her.
    Neither could Tatterhood. Wherever the younger was, there Tatterhood also wanted to be. No matter how they tried to hide the ugly child away, Tatterhood and her sister couldn’t be separated. The queen had to put up with it, whether she liked it or not.
    One midwinter night, when the girls were both nearly grown, there was a sudden hullabaloo on the gallery outside the queen’s room.
    â€˜What’s that rumbling?’ Tatterhood wondered.
    â€˜Don’t ask,’ replied the queen.
    But Tatterhood wanted to know, and didn’t stop asking till the queen gave in.
    â€˜It’s troll-hags,’ she said at last, ‘playing winter games out there.’
    â€˜Well, then,’ said Tatterhood, brandishing her dipper, ‘let’s chase them off!’
    Her sister and the queen begged her not to.

    â€˜Sit it through,’ they said. ‘The trolls will be gone in the morning.’
    No matter how they begged and wheedled, Tatterhood stood firm.
    â€˜I’ll sweep those troll-hags back where they belong,’ she said. But first she told the queen to bar the doors and windows, firm and tight. ‘No matter how curious you are,’ she warned, ‘and no matter how close you put your eye to the crack, you must neither of you see so much as a glimmer.’
    Then, waving her dipper, she plunged outside on the billy-goat to clear away the crones. There followed such a racket, such a clamour and din, that the building rasped and groaned as though the very logs were being torn apart at the joins.
    And – for one reason or another – one of the doors creaked open just a glimmer after all, and the sister thought she would stick her head out to see how Tatterhood was doing. So she did – and before she could blink, a troll-hag swept past, wrenched off her head and stuck on a calf’s head instead.
    Well, Tatterhood was a thorough girl and the ruckus outside soon died down. But when she came back inside and saw her sister, lowing and mooing and shaking her head like a beast in the field, Tatterhood understood what had happened and smashed at the furniture in anger.
    â€˜I hope you’re contented now!’ she shouted. ‘Now that my sister has become a calf!’
    And she galloped and plunged on her buck till the rafters rumbled.
    â€˜But I suppose,’ she said at last, ‘that I could well free her.’
    So Tatterhood asked for a boat, fitted and shipshape, for herself and her sister to sail away in. When spring came and the ice broke up, the two of them sailed down the fjord to the land where the troll-women lived.
    The troll-castle hung sheer on a cliff.
    â€˜Stay where you are,’ Tatterhood told her sister as she hove the boat to, ‘and be still. I’ll be back with your head in a moment.’
    Then Tatterhood and her buck clambered up and up, to the top where the troll-house was.
    As she approached, Tatterhood saw one of the windows was open. On the sill, set like an apple to dry in the sun, was her sister’s head. She clattered onto the porch, snatched the head and galloped off with it, as fast as the buck could carry her.
    But the troll-crones had smelled her coming. They were after her in a flash, swarming out of the castle and teeming thick about her, foul and clawing, while Tatterhood laid about with her dipper. She struck and smacked and swiped – and the buck shoved and gored – till in the end the troll-flock gave up and let them go.
    Tatterhood climbed down to the ship again, took the calf’s head from her sister’s shoulders and set the right one there instead.
    Then, with her sister a person again beside her, Tatterhood took a different turn down the fjord and sailed off to a kingdom