“Well, old man! our lad’s an unlucky fellow!”
“How so?”
“I’ve trudged round to every house, but no one will give him his daughter.”
“That’s a bad business!” says the old man; “the summer will soon be coming, but we have no one to work for us here. Go to another village, old woman, perhaps you will get a bride for him there.”
The old woman went to another village, visited every house from one end to the other, but there wasn’t an atom of good to be got out of it. Wherever she thrusts herself, they always refuse. With what she left home, with that she returned home.
“No,” she says, “no one wants to become related to us poor beggars.”
“If that’s the case,” answers the old man, “there’s no use in wearing out your legs. Jump up on to the polati.”[472]
The son was sorely afflicted, and began to entreat his parents, saying:
“My born father and my born mother! give me your blessing. I will go and seek my fate myself.”
“But where will you go?”