l wider
yet, and sucked, and Pivi disappeared into its mouth, and the shell shut
up with a snap!

Kabo laughed like a fiend, and then went home.

'Where is Pivi?' asked the two pretty girls. Kabo pretended to cry, and
told how Pivi had been swallowed.

'But dry your tears, my darlings,' said Kabo, 'I will be your husband,
and my wives shall be your slaves. Everything is for the best, in the
best of all possible worlds.'

'No, no!' cried the girls, 'we love Pivi. We do not love anyone else. We
shall stay at home, and weep for Pivi!'

'Wretched idiots!' cried Kabo; 'Pivi was a scoundrel who broke my leg,
and knocked me into the river.'

Then a little cough was heard at the door, and Kabo trembled, for he
knew it was the cough of Pivi!

'Ah, dear Pivi!' cried Kabo, rushing to the door. 'What joy! I was
trying to console your dear wives.'

Pivi said not one word. He waved his hand, and five and twenty of
his friends came trooping down the hill. They cut up Kabo into little
pieces. Pivi turned round, and there was the good woman of the river.

'Pivi,' she said, 'how did you get out of the living tomb into which
Kabo sent you?'

'I had my spear with me,' said Pivi. 'It was quite dry inside the shell,
and I worked away at the fish with my spear, till he saw reason to open
his shell, and out I came.' Then the good woman laughed; and Pivi and
his two wives lived happy ever afterwards.

[Moncelon. Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie. Series iii. vol. ix.,
pp. 613-365.]

The Elf Maiden

Once upon a time two young men living in a small village fell in love
with the same girl. During the winter, it was all night except for an
hour or so about noon, when the darkness seemed a little less dark, and
then they used to see which of them could tempt her out for a sleigh
ride with the Northern Lights flashing above them, or which could
persuade her to come to a dance in some neighbouring barn. But when the
spring began, and the light grew longer, the hearts of the villagers
leapt at the sight of the sun, and a day was fixed for the boats to be
brought out, and the great nets to be spread in the bays of some islands
that lay a few miles to the north. Everybody went on this expedition,
and the two young men and the girl went with them.

They all sailed merrily across the sea chattering like a flock of
magpies, or singing their favourite songs. And when they reached the
shore, what an unpacking there was! For t