Chapter XXXV: 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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