l give you back your shift."

Now she wasn't at all inclined to marry him, but the other
girls said:

"As if it were possible for you to be married to him! Say
you will!" So she said, "Very well, I will." Then the snake
glided off from the shift, and went straight into the water. The
girl dressed and went home. And as soon as she got there,
she said to her mother,

"Mammie, mammie, thus and thus, a snake got upon my
shift, and says he, 'Marry me or I won't let you have your shift;'
and I said, 'I will.'"

"What nonsense are you talking, you little fool! as if one
could marry a snake!"

And so they remained just as they were, and forgot all about
the matter.

A week passed by, and one day they saw ever so many snakes,
a huge troop of them, wriggling up to their cottage. "Ah,
mammie, save me, save me!" cried the girl, and her mother
slammed the door and barred the entrance as quickly as possible.
The snakes would have rushed in at the door, but the door was
shut; they would have rushed into the passage, but the passage
was closed. Then in a moment they rolled themselves into a
ball, flung themselves at the window, smashed it to pieces, and
glided in a body into the room. The girl got upon the stove, but
they followed her, pulled her down, and bore her out of the room
and out of doors. Her mother accompanied her, crying like
anything.

They took the girl down to the pond, and dived right into the
water with her. And there they all turned into men and women.
The mother remained for some time on the dike, wailed a little,
and then went home.

Three years went by. The girl lived down there, and had
two children, a son and a daughter. Now she often entreated
her husband to let her go to see her mother. So at last one day
he took her up to the surface of the water, and brought her
ashore. But she asked him before leaving him,

"What am I to call out when I want you?"

"Call out to me, 'Osip, [Joseph] Osip, come here!' and I
will come," he replied.

Then he dived under water again, and she went to her
mother's, carrying her little girl on one arm, and leading her boy
by the hand. Out came her mother to meet her--was so
delighted to see her!

"Good day, mother!" said the daughter.

"Have you been doing well while you were living down
there?" asked her mother.

"Very well indeed, mother. My life there is better than