WHAT BEAUTIFUL BIRDS! I SHOULD LIKE TO MARRY ONE OF THEM!
One fine spring evening they were sitting there as usual, when a flock of swans flew across the sky from the south-east. 'What beautiful birds! I should like to marry one of them!' exclaimed the wife, as the swans gradually disappeared in the distance. Of course she did not mean anything, any more than when she repeated the same words on seeing the sand-cranes overhead, or the brants which presently came past. But the brants did not know this, and as soon as they heard her they flew down and carried her off on their wings. Her husband ran after them but he never reached them, only now and then she let fall some of the loose clothes that covered her. By and bye—for they found she was heavier than they expected—the brants let the woman fall too. Luckily they were then over the sandy beach so she was not hurt, but she was quite naked and even her hair had been rubbed off. She got up and walked quickly, crying as she went, to some trees which had large leaves, and these she twisted together till she had made a kind of apron. Then she wandered along the beach not knowing where she was going, and thinking sadly of her home and her husband, till she came to a house with an old woman sitting in it. The sight gladdened her heart, and she entered and held out the head of a red snapper which she had picked up on the shore, saying, 'Let us cook this red snapper head for dinner.'
'Yes, let us cook it,' answered the old woman, and after they had eaten it she bade the chief's wife go back to the beach and try to find something else. This time the girl brought in a fish called a sculpin, and it was cooked also; but while they were eating it the chief's wife heard the noise of boys shouting, though she could see no one.
'Take the tray with the food out to that hole,' said the old woman, and as the chief's wife did so she beheld many hands sticking up out of the ground. She placed the tray in the hands, and waited as it disappeared. In a moment it rose to the surface again, with two fine fox skins on it, which she carried back to the old woman.
'Make yourself some robes out of them,' said she, and the girl did so.
When she was dressed, the old woman spoke to her again, and said:
'Your father and mother live in a salmon creek, a little way along the beach. It might be well for you to go and pay them a visit.' So the girl went, and after a time she saw her father out in a canoe spearing salmon, and her mother was with him. The girl ran quickly down to the water's edge in order to meet them, but when her father saw her he cried out:
'Here comes a fox; where are my bow and arrows?' And his daughter heard him and ran as fast as she could to the woods.
After a while she stopped running, for she knew she was safe, and then she made her way to the old woman.