us rest?"

"You may rest for as long a time as it needs to say 'Frothi,'" cried the
king, "and no longer. Now you have rested. Grind away. No one should be
weary who is grinding out yellow gold."

"He is a wicked king," said the women. "We will grind for him no more.
Mill, grind out hundreds and hundreds of strong warriors to fight Frothi
and punish him for his cruel words."

The millstones ground faster and faster. Hundreds of warriors sprang
out, and they killed Frothi and all his men.

"Now I shall be king," cried the strongest of the warriors. He put the
two women and the magic millstones on a ship to go to a far-away land.
"Grind, grind," he called to the women.

"But we are so weary. Please let us rest," they begged.

"Rest? No. Grind on, grind on. Grind salt, if you can grind nothing
else."

Night came and the weary women were still grinding. "Will you not let us
rest?" they asked.

"No," cried the cruel warrior. "Keep grinding, even if the ship goes to
the bottom of the sea." The women ground, and it was not long before the
ship really did go to the bottom, and carried the cruel warrior with it.
There at the bottom of the sea are the two millstones still grinding
salt, for there is no one to say that they must grind no longer. That is
why the sea is salt.

THE STORY OF THE FIRST WHITEFISH.

One day a crane was sitting on a rock far out in the water, when he
heard a voice say, "Grandfather Crane, Grandfather Crane, please come
and carry us across the lake." It was the voice of a child, and when the
crane had come to the shore, he saw two little boys holding each other's
hands and crying bitterly.

"Why do you cry?" asked the crane, "and why do you wish to go across the
lake, away from your home and friends?"

"We have no friends," said the little boys, crying more bitterly than
ever. "We have no father and no mother, and a cruel witch troubles us.
She tries all the time to do us harm, and we are going to run away where
she can never find us."

"I will carry you over the lake," said the crane. "Hold on well, but do
not touch the back of my head, for if you do, you will fall into the
water and go to the bottom of the lake. Will you obey me?"

"Yes, indeed, we will obey," they said. "We will not touch your head.
But please come quickly and go as fast as you can. We surely heard the
voice of the witch in the woods."

It really was the witch, and she was saying over and over to herself, "I