Andrew Lang_Fairy Book 09 (19 page)

In he went, and there he found two pretty, laughing, teasing
girls. He hunted for his cocoanuts, but none were there.

Down he ran to the river. 'Oh, lady, my nuts have been stolen! '
he cried.

'Come with me, Pivi, and there will be nuts for you,' said the
woman.

They went back to the hut, where the girls were laughing and
playing.

'Nuts for you?' said the woman, 'there are two wives for you,
Pivi, take them to your house.'

'Oh, good lady,' cried Pivi, 'how kind you are!'

So they were married and very happy, when in came cross old Kabo.

'Is this Pivi?' said he. 'Yes, it is—no, it isn't. It is not
the same Pivi—but there is a kind of likeness. Tell me, are you
Pivi?'

'Oh, yes!' said Pivi. 'But I am much better looking, and there
are my two wives, are they not beautiful?'

'You are mocking me, Pivi! Your wives? How? Where did you get
them? You, with wives! '

Then Pivi told Kabo about the kind woman, and all the wonderful
things that had happened to him.

'Well, well!' said Kabo, 'but I want to be handsome too, and to
have pretty young wives.'

'But how can we manage that?' asked Pivi.

'Oh, we shall do all the same things over again—play at
slinging, and, this time, you shall break my leg, Pivi!'

'With all the pleasure in life,' said Pivi, who was always ready
to oblige.

So they went slinging, and Pivi broke Kabo's leg, and Kabo fell
into the river, and floated into the bamboo, and the woman blew
him out, just as before. Then she picked up Kabo, and put him in
the shed, and told him what to do when the Black Ant came, and
what to do when the Red Ant came. But he didn't!

When the Black Ant came, he shook himself, and behold, he had a
twisted leg, and a hump back, and was as black as the ant.

Then he ran to the woman.

'Look, what a figure I am!' he said; but she only told him to
climb the tree, as she had told Pivi.

But Kabo climbed with both hands and feet, and he threw down the
nuts, instead of carrying them down, and he put them in the hut.
And when he went back for them there he found two horrid old
black hags, wrangling, and scolding, and scratching! So back he
went to Pivi with his two beautiful wives, and Pivi was very
sorry, but what could he do? Nothing, but sit and cry.

So, one day, Kabo came and asked Pivi to sail in his canoe to a
place where he knew of a great big shell-fish, enough to feed on
for a week. Pivi went, and deep in the clear water they saw a
monstrous shell-fish, like an oyster, as big as a rock, with the
shell wide open.

'We shall catch it, and dry it, and kipper it,' said Pivi, 'and
give a dinner to all our friends!'

'I shall dive for it, and break it off the rock,' said Kabo, 'and
then you must help me to drag it up into the canoe.'

There the shell-fish lay and gaped, but Kabo, though he dived in,
kept well out of the way of the beast.

Up he came, puffing and blowing: ' Oh, Pivi,' he cried, 'I cannot
move it. Jump in and try yourself!'

Pivi dived, with his spear, and the shell-fish opened its shell
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.)

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 this was a noted
fishing ground, and here they would live, in little wooden huts,
till autumn and bad weather came round again.

The maiden and the two young men happened to share the same hut
with some friends, and fished daily from the same boat. And as
time went on, one of the youths remarked that the girl took less
notice of him than she did of his companion. At first he tried
to think that he was dreaming, and for a long while he kept his
eyes shut very tight to what he did not want to see, but in spite
of his efforts, the truth managed to wriggle through, and then
the young man gave up trying to deceive himself, and set about
finding some way to get the better of his rival.

The plan that he hit upon could not be carried out for some
months; but the longer the young man thought of it, the more
pleased he was with it, so he made no sign of his feelings, and
waited patiently till the moment came. This was the very day
that they were all going to leave the islands, and sail back to
the mainland for the winter. In the bustle and hurry of
departure, the cunning fisherman contrived that their boat should
be the last to put off, and when everything was ready, and the
sails about to be set, he suddenly called out:

'Oh, dear, what shall I do! I have left my best knife behind in
the hut. Run, like a good fellow, and get it for me, while I
raise the anchor and loosen the tiller.'

Not thinking any harm, the youth jumped back on shore and made
his way up the steep hank. At the door of the hut he stopped and
looked back, then started and gazed in horror. The head of the
boat stood out to sea, and he was left alone on the island.

Yes, there was no doubt of it—he was quite alone; and he had
nothing to help him except the knife which his comrade had
purposely dropped on the ledge of the window. For some minutes
he was too stunned by the treachery of his friend to think about
anything at all, but after a while he shook himself awake, and
determined that he would manage to keep alive somehow, if it were
only to revenge himself.

So he put the knife in his pocket and went off to a part of the
island which was not so bare as the rest, and had a small grove
of trees. :From one of these he cut himself a bow, which he
strung with a piece of cord that had been left lying about the
huts.

When this was ready the young man ran down to the shore and shot
one or two sea-birds, which he plucked and cooked for supper.

In this way the months slipped by, and Christmas came round
again. The evening before, the youth went down to the rocks and
into the copse, collecting all the drift wood the sea had washed
up or the gale had blown down, and he piled it up in a great
stack outside the door, so that he might not have to fetch any
all the next day. As soon as his task was done, he paused and
looked out towards the mainland, thinking of Christmas Eve last
year, and the merry dance they had had. The night was still and
cold, and by the help of the Northern Lights he could almost sea
across to the opposite coast, when, suddenly, he noticed a boat,
which seemed steering straight for the island. At first he could
hardly stand for joy, the chance of speaking to another man was
so delightful; but as the boat drew near there was something, he
could not tell what, that was different from the boats which he
had been used to all his life, and when it touched the shore he
saw that the people that filled it were beings of another world
than ours. Then he hastily stepped behind the wood stack, and
waited for what might happen next.

The strange folk one by one jumped on to the rocks, each bearing
a load of something that they wanted. Among the women he
remarked two young girls, more beautiful and better dressed than
any of the rest, carrying between them two great baskets full of
provisions. The young man peeped out cautiously to see what all
this crowd could be doing inside the tiny hut, but in a moment he
drew back again, as the girls returned, and looked about as if
they wanted to find out what sort of a place the island was.

Their sharp eyes soon discovered the form of a man crouching
behind the bundles of sticks, and at first they felt a little
frightened, and started as if they would run away. But the youth
remained so still, that they took courage and laughed gaily to
each other. 'What a strange creature, let us try what he is made
of,' said one, and she stooped down and gave him a pinch.

Now the young man had a pin sticking in the sleeve of his jacket,
and the moment the girl's hand touched him she pricked it so
sharply that the blood came. The girl screamed so loudly that
the people all ran out of their huts to see what was the matter.
But directly they caught sight of the man they turned and fled in
the other direction, and picking up the goods they had brought
with them scampered as fast as they could down to the shore. In
an instant, boat, people, and goods had vanished completely.

In their hurry they had, however, forgotten two things: a bundle
of keys which lay on the table, and the girl whom the pin had
pricked, and who now stood pale and helpless beside the wood
stack.

'You will have to make me your wife,' she said at last, 'for you
have drawn my blood, and I belong to you.'

'Why not? I am quite willing,' answered he. 'But how do you
suppose we can manage to live till summer comes round again?'

'Do not be anxious about that,' said the girl; 'if you will only
marry me all will be well. I am very rich, and all my family are
rich also.'

Then the young man gave her his promise to make her his wife, and
the girl fulfilled her part of the bargain, and food was
plentiful on the island all through the long winter months,
though he never knew how it got there. And by-and-by it was
spring once more, and time for the fisher-folk to sail from the
mainland.

'Where are we to go now?' asked the girl, one day, when the sun
seemed brighter and the wind softer than usual.

'I do not care where I go,' answered the young man; 'what do you
think?'

The girl replied that she would like to go somewhere right at the
other end of the island, and build a house, far away from the
huts of the fishing-folk. And he consented, and that very day
they set off in search of a sheltered spot on the banks of a
stream, so that it would be easy to get water.

In a tiny bay, on the opposite side of the island they found the
very thing, which seemed to have been made on purpose for them;
and as they were tired with their long walk, they laid themselves
down on a bank of moss among some birches and prepared to have a
good night's rest, so as to be fresh for work next day. But
before she went to sleep the girl turned to her husband, and
said: 'If in your dreams you fancy that you hear strange noises,
be sure you do not stir, or get up to see what it is.'

'Oh, it is not likely we shall hear any noises in such a quiet
place,' answered he, and fell sound asleep.

Suddenly he was awakened by a great clatter about his ears, as if
all the workmen in the world were sawing and hammering and
building close to him. He was just going to spring up and go to
see what it meant, when he luckily remembered his wife's words
and lay still. But the time till morning seemed very long, and
with the first ray of sun they both rose, and pushed aside the
branches of the birch trees. There, in the very place they had
chosen, stood a beautiful house—doors and windows, and
everything all complete!

'Now you must fix on a spot for your cow-stalls,' said the girl,
when they had breakfasted off wild cherries; 'and take care it is
the proper size, neither too large nor too small.' And the
husband did as he was bid, though he wondered what use a
cow-house could be, as they had no cows to put in it. But as he
was a little afraid of his wife, who knew so much more than he,
he asked no questions.

This night also he was awakened by the same sounds as before, and
in the morning they found, near the stream, the most beautiful
cow-house that ever was seen, with stalls and milk-pails and
stools all complete, indeed, everything that a cow-house could
possibly want, except the cows. Then the girl bade him measure
out the ground for a storehouse, and this, she said, might be as
large as he pleased; and when the storehouse was ready she
proposed that they should set off to pay her parents a visit.