[ [111] ] The Kalevide was directed to stamp with his right foot to open the gates of Põrgu.
[ [112] ] In Esthonian legends, the wolf is the great enemy of the devil. See vol. ii. [Beast-stories].
[ [113] ] We meet with similar miraculously swift animals in other Esthonian tales.
[ [114] ] The outhouses in Sarvik's palace ( Kalevipoeg, [Canto 14] ) contained mere ordinary stores.
[ [115] ] A not very unusual incident in folk-tales, though it often takes the form of offering an iron bar instead of your own hand to a giant who wishes to shake hands with you.
[ [116] ] A visit to any description of non-human intelligent beings in Esthonian tales almost always extends to years, though it may have apparently lasted for only a day or two.
[ [117] ] In most stories of this class, the hero forgets his companion on reaching home, either by a charm or by breaking a taboo.
[ [118] ] Another instance of a child being asked for by an ambiguous request is to be found in the story of the Clever Countrywoman (Jannsen), which must not be confounded with one in Kreutzwald's collection with a nearly similar title, and of which we append an abstract. The story ends, rather unusually, in a subterfuge. A herd-boy returned one evening, and reported to his mistress that a cow was missing. The woman went herself, but everything round her was changed by magic, and she could not find her way home. However, as the mist rose from the moor, a little white man appeared, whom she recognised as one of the moor-dwellers. He took her home, and returned her cow, on her promising him what she would carry night and day under her heart. From thenceforth she took care always to wear her apron. A year afterwards, she became the mother of a fine boy, and when he was nine weeks old, the window was opened one night, and the intruder cried out, "Give me what you have carried night and day under your heart, as you promised." The woman flung him her apron, crying out, "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, receive what I promised you;" and he instantly vanished with the apron.
[ [119] ] These great public periodical feasts are Eastern rather than Western. Compare the story of Ali Shar and Zumurrud ( Thousand and One Nights ).
[ [120] ] A similar feat is performed by Sarvik in the Kalevipoeg, [Canto 17].