The Journey to the Earth's End (a folktale)

This is your Uncle Grundtvig!
Well, it’s the Danish fairy tale: ‘the castle’, or you can also may call it: “Her Name Was Karen” (all in English, to reach a larger audience!).
Please, listen and read:
“I have to go to the end of the world,” said Hans, “because otherwise I won’t get Peter Larsen’s daughter. – Do I still have far to go there?” he asked the guard.
“No,” he got as an answer, “you don’t have very far now. You will soon arrive at the Red Sea, and on its other side – there lies the castle at the end of the world.
But an evil sorcerer lives there,” said the old soldier.
“Well, I don’t care who lives there,” said Hans, “but I should and must go there!”
“Then you can take a commission from me,” said the shield-guard, “and inquire when a relief will come at last, for now I have been standing at that post three hundred years.” – “Yes, I will do that,” Hans promised, and hurried on, and soon he found himself at the Red Sea. There he met an old woman on the beach who had a small boat, and it looked, as if she was there to ferry the people across.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “I want to go to the end of the world,” Hans answered. – “You’ll get there soon enough,” said the woman, “because you will not come back from there.” – “Oh, yes!” replied Hans, “I must go home again to marry rich Peter Larsen’s Karen.”
"Yes," said the woman, "I’ll translate you for my sake, and if you should come back, then you can tell me how long I should lie there and splash around in the water. Now I’ve been putting people over there for 700 years."
"I will see that I can find out," said Hans, and the woman went with him across the Red Sea and over to the castle at the end of the world. He found a gate, on which he knocked, and there came a young girl who opened for him; it was a princess; – but there was no one else in the castle just then.
He wished her a "good evening" and asked if he could stay there for the night. "No!" cried the princess, "what do you want here?"
[and so on and so forth!]
Music: all rights © by the company 'Brilliant Classics' ('Bruckner' from the CD, with piano compositions by Anton Bruckner, played by Francesco Pasqualotto, 2019).