Shortshanks is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in Norske Folkeeventyr. Synopsis A poor couple had many children, and one day had two more sons. Both boys looked about the cottage and set off to seek their fortune so quickly that the second son had to catch up to the first. When they met, they baptized each other by their chosen names, Shortshanks and King Sturdy, and set out in different directions. King Sturdy said that Shortshanks could summon him by calling his name three times, but should do so only in the last extremity. Shortshanks came across, in turn, three old women each of whom had only one eye; he stole each eye, and the women bought them back in return for an enchanted sword, an enchanted ship that could fly over land, and the art of brewing one hundred lasts of malt at once. He used the ship to sail to the king's castle, where he got a job working for the kitchen-maid. The castle was hung with black, and he learned that the princess had been promised to three ogres, one of whom was coming to fetch her. Ritter Red had promised to try to save her, but they do not know that he can do it. The next day, the princess went down to the sea strand. Ritter Red went with her but, as soon as everyone else was gone, climbed a tree for safety. Shortshanks asked permission to go down to the sea and, having got it, fought the five-headed ogre that came. The princess had him sleep a time in her lap, and threw over him a tinsel robe. Ritter Red threatened to kill the princess if she told who had killed the ogre and cut out its tongue and liver. Shortshanks took the gold and silver from the ogre's ship and gave it to the kitchen-maid. He then fought the ten-headed ogre, and the princess threw a silver robe over him while he slept, after. The third day, he fought the fifteen-headed ogre, and the princess threw over him a golden robe, but before he slept, she told him what Ritter Red had done and would do, and he told her to demand him as the cup-bearer for the wedding; he would spill some of Ritter Red's wine but none of hers, and Ritter Red would strike