g crow into a corner behind the boxes.

The hen soon began to grow, and her head reached the lid of the basket
while she sat on the egg. She grew taller for three months, and for
several days of the fourth month.

The widow went into the storehouse to look at her foster-children, and
what did she behold on raising the lid of the basket? The hen had grown
into the fair maiden Salme;[16] the egg had given birth to a second
maiden, Linda, while the poor crow had become an orphan girl, a
maid-of-all-work, to carry wood to the stove and to bend under the
weight of water-pails from the well.

Salme was besieged by suitors. Five and six brought her offerings of
corn-brandy, seven sent her offers of marriage, and eight sent
trustworthy messengers to bring them news of her. The fame of her beauty
spread far and wide, and at length not merely mortal lovers, but even
the Moon, the Sun,[17] and the eldest son of the Pole Star sought her
hand in marriage.

The Moon drove up in a grand chariot drawn by fifty horses, and attended
by a train of sixty grooms. He was a pale slender youth, and found no
favour in the eyes of Salme, who cried out from the storehouse:

"Him I will not have for husband,
And the night-illumer love not.
Far too varied are his duties,
And his work is much too heavy.
Sometimes he must shine in heaven
Ere the day, or late in evening;
Sometimes when the sun is rising;
Sometimes he must toil at morning,
Ere the day has fully broken;
Sometimes watches in the daytime,
Lingering in the sky till mid-day."

When the Moon heard her answer, he grew yet paler, and returned home
sorrowful.

And now the Sun himself appeared, a young man with fiery eyes; and he
drove up with similar state to the Moon. But Salme declared that she
liked him even less than the Moon, for he was much too fickle.
Sometimes, during the finest summer weather, he would send rain in the
midst of the hay-harvest; or if the time had come for sowing oats, he
would parch the land with drought; or if the time for sowing is past, he
dries up the barley in the ground, beats down the flax, and presses down
the peas in the furrows; he won't let the buckwheat grow, or the lentils
in their pods; and when the rye is white for harvest, he either glows
fiercely and drives away the clouds, or sends a pouring rain.

The Sun was deeply offended; his eyes glowed with anger, and he departed
in a rage.

At last th