Canto 15 of the poem.

[127] This old man may have been the consort of the Meadow-Queen. _Cf._ pp. 188, 259.

[128] We shall find mussel-shells used as boats in other tales.

[129] "These forests are very useful in delivering princes from their courtiers, like a sieve that keeps back the bran. Then the princes get away to follow their fortunes."— _George MacDonald_, " _The Light Princess_. "

[130] Compare the scene with the four Grey Women in the second part of _Faust_.

[131] Nine is a mystical number as well as seven.

[132] Ahti, the God of the Waters.

[133] A sacred tree in Eastern Europe, as it is in the British Isles.

[134] See page 108.

[135] _Tont_ is a common name for a house-spirit.

[136] Talking trees are common in Esthonian tales; I do not remember another instance of bleeding trees.

[137] Else.

[138] Pussy.

[139] It must be remembered that the dominant race in Esthonia is German, and that the gentry, even if not fairies, would be expected to speak a language unintelligible to the people. It is significant that the very word for lady in Esthonian is _proua_, a corruption of _Frau_. Everything particularly fine is called "Saxon."

[140] In some countries the beard is regarded as a symbol of power, as well as of age and wisdom. Compare the account of Schaibar in the story of Prince Ahmed ( _Thousand and One Nights_ ).

[141] The Germans are generally represented in Esthonian tales as rich, and sometimes as very haughty people.

[142] Compare _Goody Two-Shoes_ ; but this is a modern tale, believed to have been written by Goldsmith.

[143] There is a story (French, I think) of a king who overheard a poor man and his wife abusing Adam and Eve for their poverty. The king took them home, and entertained them. They had a grand feast of many covers every day, but there was always one, the largest of all, which they were forbidden to open. The wife soon persuaded her husband to do so, when a mouse ran out, and the king turned them out of doors.

[144] This expression shows the late date of the present story, for no people uninfluenced by the modern Christian notion that all reasoning beings except men must be necessarily angels or devils, and therefore immortal, represent superhuman beings as immortal, with the exception of the gods, and not always even these.

[145] See page 157.

[146] The original title of this story is, "How an orphan made his fortune unexpectedly." Some commentators identify the keeper of the hounds with Othin. In the Scandinavian mythology the breaking loose of the monsters, the most terrible of whom is Garm, the watch-dog of Helheim, precedes the cataclysms of Ragnarök.

[147] This is the usual condition attached to such gifts, as in the Swiss story of a chamois-hunter who received an inexhaustible cheese from a mountain-spirit. But in the case of the magic saddlebags of the Moor in the story of Joodar ( _Thousand and One Nights_ ), it was a condition that all the dishes should be put back empty. The Jews, too, were forbidden to leave anything over from the Passover Feast.

[148] Or frog: the word is the same.

[149] Either the extinct urus or the nearly extinct aurochs must be here intended.

[150] Yolk-Carrie.

[151] Compare pages 246 and 248.

[152] The word translated "lout" means literally "filthy-nose."

[153] In the _Kalevala_, Runo 33, Kullervo revenges himself in the same manner upon the wife of Ilmarinen, whom he has been serving as herd-boy, and who has treated him with great cruelty and harshness.

[154] Titus.

[155] Here, as well as in the stories relative to the Thunder-God's musical instrument, Löwe calls it a bagpipe; but I do not find this meaning for the word in the dictionaries. Still, in the present story, it appears to have been a rather expensive instrument.

[156] Bartholomew.

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