“You get right out of here, Erkki!” he roared. “I never want to see you again!”
“There now, master,” Erkki said, “you’re not going to lose your temper over a little thing like a dead wife, are you?”
“I am so going to lose my temper!” the Devil shouted. “And what’s more it isn’t a little thing! I liked this wife, I did, and I don’t know where I’ll get another one I like as well! So you just clear out of here and be quick about it, too!”
“Very well, master,” Erkki said, “I’ll go but not until you pay me what you owe me.”
“What I owe you!” bellowed the Devil. “What about all you owe me for my house and my cattle and my old wife and my dear new wife and everything!”
“You’ve lost your temper,” Erkki said, “and now you’ve got to pay me a patch of your hide big enough to sole a pair of boots. That was our bargain!”
The Devil roared and blustered but Erkki was firm. He wouldn’t budge a step until the Devil had allowed him to slit a great patch of hide off his back.
That piece of the Devil’s hide made the finest soles that a pair of boots ever had. It wore for years and years and years. In fact Erkki is still tramping around on those same soles. The fame of them has spread over all the land and it has got so that now people stop Erkki on the highway to look at his wonderful boots soled with the Devil’s hide. Travelers from foreign countries are deeply interested when they hear about the boots and when they meet Erkki they question him closely.
“Tell us,” they beg him, “how did you get the Devil’s hide in the first place?”
Erkki always laughs and makes the same answer: