Suyettar bewitching Kerttu
“Oh, why,” Kerttu cried, “why didn’t I heed poor Musti’s warning!”
Suyettar dragged her roughly out of the water.
“Come along!” she said. “Dress yourself in those rags of mine and start that cake a-rolling! We ought to reach your brothers’ house by to-night.”
So poor Kerttu had to dress herself in Suyettar’s filthy old garments while Suyettar, looking like a fresh young girl, decked herself out in Kerttu’s pretty bodice and skirt.
Unwillingly now and with a heavy heart Kerttu threw down the cake and said:
“Roll, roll, my little cake!
Show me the way that I must take
To find at last the brothers nine
Whose own true mother is also mine!”
Off rolled the little cake and they two followed it, Kerttu weeping bitterly and Suyettar taunting her with ugly laughs. Then suddenly Kerttu forgot to weep for Suyettar took from her her memory and her tongue.
The little cake led them at last to a farmhouse before which it stopped. This was where the nine brothers were living. Eight of them were out working in the fields but the youngest was at home. He opened the door and when Suyettar told him that she was Kerttu, his sister, he kissed her tenderly and made her welcome. Then he invited her inside and they sat side by side on the bench and talked and Suyettar told him all she had heard from Kerttu about his mother and about the tokens which had been changed at Kerttu’s birth. The youngest brother listened eagerly and Suyettar told her story so glibly that of course he supposed that she was his own true sister.