at all this gift of God.” The old Lapp thinks: “Of God even he knows something.” Statu: “Yes, yes; he begins already to liquefy.” Behind the mill he splits wood for the trough, chops it, trims the branches, splits and cuts, carries it to a trough near the back door. To the elder son: “Dear child, bring me the axe (out of the hut).” The old Lapp carries away the axe. The younger Statu: “Father, now he’s looking up; now he’s moving; now he seizes even the axe.” Statu chuckles, sings and plays; he does not hear, observe, or know anything. The old man strikes the elder youth on the head and kills him. Statu finds that he dallies, sings and waits. He says to the younger son: “Bring me the axe, quick, quick.” The old Lapp then split open this child’s head too, took out the brains and severed the windpipe. Statu (listening): “They loaf round all the angles, they wave their heads and eyes; I myself wish to take the axe.” The old man awaits with care with the axe behind the door of the possu, waits and moves here and there. He let fall a splitter on the head of the terrible one, split the large skull, tore away the eyes and nose, shed the blood of the devourer of men, and the blood coloured the soil. (The old Lapp carries out the fallen one, cuts him in pieces and throws them one after the other to [1]Ludac, who in the meantime had come home). Ludac taps on the ground here and there, snuffs, noses, and gloats over that which enters the possu. She resumes the prey, beats it with her hands and cries in anger: “Throw me reindeer’s hoofs and not stockinged feet.” (She continues while she proceeds to eat the soup prepared from her husband and children): “How good it is; but yet it has a queer taste of its own!” (The Lapp takes the eyes of the woman, which lie under the door, fries them in a frying pan, and she perceives it and enquires: “What is it that explodes, crackles and hisses; what is it that fizzles on the charcoal, bursts, brawls, goes click clack? Look, O my eyes, become clear under the door; become clear, O my eyes, O my sparks.” The Lapp: “He has dipped the flesh of thy husband thy eyes in the fat and has eaten them.” Ludac: “In his stomach are my eyes, O my husband, my little owlet,[2] dear boy, my little one. (The man in the fur coat, the Lapp, goes away making merry).
The Moravian variant of this poem is called Budulinek, and is as follows:
There was once a grandfather and grandmother, and they had Budulinek. They boiled him a nice dish of soup, and said: “Budulinek, don’t open to any one.” After this they went away into the wood. When they had gone away came Mrs. Foxey, tapped at the door and cried: “Open! Budulinek.” Budulinek replied: “I won’t open,” and Foxey cried: “Do open, and I’ll give you a ride on my little tail!” Budulinek wanted to have a ride on Foxey’s little tail, forgot grandfather’s warning and opened.
