liver, where I remained a year. . . .” After that the malignant man laid his nets and caught the pike, and the hero lived three years in a house. He was then enclosed three years alive in a coffin. The malign man’s son then comes flying in the form of a black-cock. To the malign man’s great disgust, they quarrel about it, and various things happen. Here the pike saviour corresponds closely to the friendly pike Piecuch spares in the Polish story, and which afterwards obeys all his behests when called upon.
These are the principal narrative poems given by Mantegazza; the others are shorter Iyrics, often shrewdly and accurately describing fish and animals, as, e.g., the wolf, the salmon, and the reindeer: their habits and habitats. We come now to the three prose fairy stories, of which a translation is given. The first is called the Giant whose life was hid in a hen’s egg. I give it only slightly abbreviated. It is from Uts-zok:
A woman had a husband who, for seven years, had been in constant war with a giant. The woman pleased the giant, who wanted to get rid of the husband, and at last, after seven years, succeeded in killing him. But she had a son, who, when grown up, endeavoured to avenge the death of his father by killing the giant. But he never succeeded. It seemed just as though there was no life in the giant.
“Dear mama,” said the boy one day, “perhaps thou knowest where the giant conceals his life?”
The mother knew nothing, but promised to enquire; and one day when the giant was in a good humour, did so.
“Why do you ask me?” said the giant.
“Because,” replied the woman, “if you or I were in any danger, it would be a consolation to know that your life was well defended.”
The giant had no suspicion, and recounted as follows: “In the middle of a sea of fire there is an island, in the island a barrel, in the barrel a sheep, in the sheep a hen, in the hen an egg, and in the egg exists my life.”
Having discovered the secret, the mother confides it to her son. “Then,” said her son, “I ought to choose me helpmates, with whom I may cross the sea of fire.” He hired a bear, a wolf, a falcon, and a yunner (a large kind of sea bird), and they set off. He sat under an iron tent with the falcon and the yunner to prevent being burnt, and made the bear and wolf row.
This is why the bear has dark brown fur and the wolf brown spots about the shoulder; for both have made a journey in the middle of a sea of fire, the waves of which burnt like the flame.
And so they reached the island. When they had found the barrel, the bear knocked the bottom out with his paw. Out of the barrel leapt the sheep. The wolf pursued the sheep and rent it. From the sheep out flew the hen. The falcon seized it and tore it to pieces. In the hen was an egg, which fell into the sea and foundered. The yunner dived for it. The first time he remained a long time under water, but not being able to stay so long without breathing, returned to the surface. Having recovered breath he
