Mighty Mikko: A Book of Finnish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales

So Matti agreed and they walked on together. The sun was hot and by midafternoon Matti was feeling faint with hunger and fatigue.

“Master,” the Servant said, “I will run ahead to the next village and order the landlord at the inn to prepare you a fine dinner. Do you come along slowly and by the time you arrive the dinner will be ready.”

“But remember,” Matti warned him, “I have no money to pay for a fine dinner!”

“Trust me!” the Servant said and off he hurried.

At the next village he hunted out the best inn and ordered the landlord to prepare his finest dinner without delay. He was so particular that everything should be the best that the landlord supposed his master must be some great lord.

When Matti arrived on foot, tired and travel-stained and shabby, the landlord was amazed.

“It’s fine lords we have nowadays!” he muttered scornfully, and he wished he had not been in such haste to cook the best food in the house. But it was cooked and ready to serve and so, with an ill grace, he served it.

Matti and his man ate their fill of good cabbage soup and fish and fowl tender and juicy.

It quite enraged the landlord to see poor men with such good appetites.

“They eat as if their pockets were lined with gold!” he muttered angrily. “Well, let them eat while they can for they’ll lose their appetites once they see the reckoning!”

When they finished eating, they rested and then called for the reckoning. It was much more than it should have been but neither Matti nor the Servant objected.

“Like a good fellow,” the Servant said, “will you please to lend me your half peck measure.”

“Like a good fellow, indeed!” the landlord muttered to himself. “Who are you to call me a good fellow I’d like to know!”

Nevertheless he went out and got the measure.

“Now, master,” the Servant said, “give me three of your nine silver kopeks.”

The Servant threw the three silver kopeks into the measure, shook the measure three times and lo! it was filled to the brim with silver kopeks! The Servant counted out the amount of the reckoning and handed the rest of the money to his master. Then he and Matti went on their way leaving the landlord gaping after them with open mouth.

Day after day the Servant paid the reckoning in the same way at the various inns where they stopped until they reached at last Matti’s native village and the old house that still belonged to him.

They settled themselves there and one day the Servant said to Matti:

“Now, master, you know your fate: for having left your native village you know you are destined to marry a horned woman. You might as well do it at once for you’ll have to do it sooner or later.”

“That is true,” Matti said, “and if I knew the whereabouts of the horned woman who is my fate I should marry her at once.”

“In that case we’ll lose no more time,” the Servant said. “The King has three daughters all of whom are horned. This isn’t generally known but it is true. Let us go to the palace and present your suit. The King will give friendly ear for there are not many suitors for daughters with horns. He will try to make you take the oldest who has big horns and a hoarse voice. When she sees you, she’ll whisper: ‘Take me! Take me!’ But do you shake your head and answer: ‘No! Not this one!’ Then the King will send for his second daughter. Her horns are not so big nor is her voice so hoarse. She, too, will whisper you: ‘Take me! Take me!’ But do you again shake your head and answer: ‘No! Not this one!’ Be firm and the King will finally have to send for his youngest daughter. Her horns are just soft little baby horns and her voice is just a little husky. Take her and soon all will be well.”

So Matti and the Servant went to the palace and got audience with the King.

“My master, Matti,” the Servant said, addressing the King, “is desirous of marrying a wife with horns.”

The King was interested at once.

“As it happens I have a daughter with horns,” he said. “I’ll have her come in.”

He sent for his oldest daughter and presently she appeared. Her horns were long and thick.

“Take me! Take me!” she whispered hoarsely as she passed Matti.

“See what a fine girl she is!” the King said, “and what well grown horns she has!”

But Matti shook his head.

“No, Your Majesty, I don’t think I want to marry this one.”

“Of course you must follow the dictates of your heart,” the King said drily. “However, come to think of it, my second daughter also has horns. Maybe you’d like to consider her.”

So the second daughter was called in. Her horns were not so large as her sister’s nor was her voice so hoarse. But Matti, remembering the Servant’s warning, refused her, too. The King seemed surprised and even annoyed that Matti should refuse his daughters so glibly, but when he found that Matti was firm he said:

“I have got another daughter, my youngest, but, if it’s horns you’re looking for, I don’t believe you’ll be interested in her at all since her horns are so small and soft that they are hardly noticeable at all. However, as you’re here, you might as well see her.”

So the youngest princess was sent for and at once Matti knew that she was the one he wanted to marry. She wasn’t as beautiful as a princess should be but she was gentle and modest and when she passed Matti her cheeks flushed and she wasn’t able to whisper anything. But Matti felt very sure that if she had whispered her voice would have been scarcely husky.

“This, O King,” he said, “is my choice! Let me marry your youngest daughter and I promise to be a faithful husband to her.”

The King would have preferred to marry off the older princesses first for their horns were getting to be very troublesome, but as they all had horns he was afraid to refuse Matti’s offer.

So after a little talk he gave Matti the youngest and in a short time they were married.

After the wedding feast the King led the young couple to the bridal chamber and closed the door.

Matti’s Servant meantime had gone out to the woods and cut some stout switches of birch. When the palace was quiet and all were asleep, he crept softly into the bridal chamber and, dragging the bride out of bed, he beat her unmercifully.

“Oh! Oh!” she cried in pain.

Her screams woke Matti and in fright he jumped out of bed and tried to stop the Servant.

“Wait!” the Servant said. “She is under an evil enchantment and I am delivering her!”

So he kept on beating her until he had drawn blood. Then instantly the horns fell from her head and there she stood a beautiful young girl released from the evil enchantment that had disfigured her.

The Servant handed her over to her husband who fell in love with her on sight and has loved her ever since.

“Now farewell, Matti,” the Servant said. “My work is done and you will need me no longer. You have married a beautiful princess and the King will soon make you his heir.”

With these words the Servant disappeared and Matti was left alone with his lovely bride.

And that was Matti’s reward for having respected the dead. God Himself in the form of the Servant had come down and taken care of him.

FAMILIAR FACES

I

MARY, MARY, SO CONTRARY!

There was once a farmer who was married to the most contrary wife in the world. Her name was Maya. If he expected Maya to say, “Yes,” she would always say, “No,” and if he expected her to say, “No,” she would always say, “Yes.” If he said the soup was too hot, Maya would instantly insist that it was too cold. She would do nothing that he wanted her to do, and she always insisted on doing everything that he did not want her to do.

Like most contrary people Maya was really very stupid and the farmer after he had been married to her for a few years knew exactly how to manage her.

For instance at Christmas one year he wanted to make a big feast for his friends and neighbors. Did he tell his wife so? Not he! Instead, a few weeks beforehand he remarked casually:

“Christmas is coming and I suppose every one will expect us to have fine white bread. But I don’t think we ought to. It’s too expensive. Black bread is good enough for us.”

“Black bread, indeed!” cried Maya. “Not at all! We’re going to have white bread and you needn’t say any more about it! Black bread at Christmas! To hear you talk people would suppose we are beggars!”

The farmer pretended to be grieved and he said:

“Well, my dear, have white bread if your heart is set on it, but I hope you don’t expect to make any pies.”

“Not make any pies! Just let me tell you I expect to make all the pies I want!”

“Well, now, Maya, if we have pies I don’t think we ought to have any wine.”

“No wine! I like that! Of course we’ll have wine on Christmas!”

The farmer was much pleased but, still pretending to protest, he said:

“Well, if we spend money on wine, we better not expect to buy any coffee.”

“What! No coffee on Christmas! Who ever heard of such a thing! Of course we’ll have coffee!”

“Well, I’m not going to quarrel with you! Get a little coffee if you like, but just enough for you and me for I don’t think we ought to have any guests.”

“What! No guests on Christmas! Indeed and you’re wrong if you think we’re not going to have a houseful of guests!”

The farmer was overjoyed but, still pretending to grumble, he said:

“If you have the house full of people, you needn’t think I’m going to sit at the head of the table, for I’m not!”

“You are, too!” screamed his wife. “That’s exactly where you are going to sit!”

“Maya, Maya, don’t get so excited! I will sit there if you insist. But if I do you mustn’t expect me to pour the wine.”

“And why not? It would be a strange thing if you didn’t pour the wine at your own table!”

“All right, all right, I’ll pour it! But you mustn’t expect me to taste it beforehand.”

“Of course you’re going to taste it beforehand!”

This was exactly what the farmer wanted his wife to say. So you see by pretending to oppose her at every turn he was able to have the big Christmas party that he wanted and he was able to feast to his heart’s content with all his friends and relatives and neighbors.

Time went by and Maya grew more and more contrary if such a thing were possible. Summer came and the haymaking season. They were going to a distant meadow to toss hay and had to cross an angry little river on a footbridge made of one slender plank.

The farmer crossed in safety, then he called back to his wife:

“Walk very carefully, Maya, for the plank is not strong!”

“I will not walk carefully!” the wife declared.

She flung herself on the plank with all her weight and when she got to the middle of the stream she jumped up and down just to show her husband how contrary she could be. Well, the plank broke with a snap, Maya fell into the water, the current carried her off, and she was drowned!

Her husband, seeing what had happened, ran madly upstream shouting:

“Help! Help!”

The haymakers heard him and came running to see what was the matter.

“My wife has fallen into the river!” he cried, “and the current has carried her body away!”

“What ails you?” the haymakers said. “Are you mad? If the current has carried your wife away, she’s floating downstream, not upstream!”

“Any other woman would float downstream,” the farmer said. “Yes! But you know Maya! She’s so contrary she’d float upstream every time!”

“That’s true,” the haymakers said, “she would!”

So all afternoon the farmer searched upstream for his wife’s body but he never found it.

When night came he went home and had a good supper of all the things he liked to eat which Maya would never let him have.

II

JANE, JANE, DON’T COMPLAIN!

There was once a man who was poor and lazy and he had a wife who was even worse. Her name was Jenny. Jenny was so lazy that it was an effort for her to lift one foot after the other. And in addition to her laziness she was an everlasting complainer. “Oh!” she used to grunt in the morning, “I wish we didn’t have to get up!” and “Oh!” she used to groan at night, “I wish we didn’t have to take our shoes off before going to bed!”

One day when they were both out in the forest collecting faggots, Jenny said:

“I don’t see why we’re not rich! I don’t see why the King should live at his ease while we have to grub for everything we get! I just hate work!”

Of course the trouble both with Jenny and her husband was not that they worked but that they didn’t work. It was because they didn’t that they had so much time to think about it.

“Drat it all!” Jenny went on, whining, “Adam and Eve are to blame for all our misfortunes! If they hadn’t disobeyed God’s commandment and eaten that apple, we’d all be living in the Garden of Eden to this day! It’s all their fault that we have to moil and toil and hurry and scurry!”

“Yes,” the man agreed, “it is, especially Eve’s. Of course Adam was to blame, too, for he should have controlled his wife better. But Eve was the more to blame. If I had been Adam I shouldn’t have allowed her to touch the apple in the first place.”

Now it happened that the King who was out hunting that day overheard this conversation.

“Ha!” he thought to himself, “I’ve a great mind to teach these two people a lesson!”

He pushed aside the bushes that had hidden him from them and said:

“Good day to you both! I have just heard your complaints and I, too, think it very hard that you should be poor while others are rich. I tell you what I’ll do: I’ll take you both home with me to the castle and maintain you in ease and luxury provided you obey me in just one thing.”

Jenny and her husband agreed to this eagerly and just as they were the King took them home with him to the castle. He lodged them in a room with golden furniture, he gave them fine clothes to wear, and for food he had them served the choicest delicacies in the world.

As they sat eating their first royal meal, he came in to them carrying in his hands a covered dish of silver. He put the dish down in the center of the table.

“Now, my friends,” he said, “I promised to maintain you in this ease and luxury provided you obeyed me in one thing. You see this silver dish. I forbid you ever to lift the cover. If you disobey me, that moment I shall take from you your fine clothes and send you back to your poverty and misery.”

With that the King left them and they stuffed themselves to their hearts’ content with the delicate foods set before them.

They were so busy, eating and drinking and admiring themselves in their fine clothes, that for the first day they didn’t give the covered dish a thought. The second day the wife noticed it and said:

“That’s the thing we’re not to touch. Well, for my part I don’t want to touch it. I don’t want to do anything but eat and sleep and try on my pretty new clothes.”

By the third day they had eaten so much and so steadily that they were no longer hungry and when they lay down on the big soft bed they no longer fell instantly asleep.

“Dear me,” Jenny began whining, “I don’t know what’s the matter with this food! It doesn’t taste as good as it used to! Maybe the cook has grown careless! I think we ought to complain to the King. I’m beginning to feel very uncomfortable and I haven’t any appetite at all! I wonder what’s in that covered dish. Perhaps it’s something to eat, something perfectly delicious! I’ve half a mind to lift the cover and see.”

“Now just you leave that silver dish alone!” the man growled. He, too, had been eating too much and was feeling peevish. “Don’t you remember what the King said?”

“Pooh!” cried Jenny. “What do I care what the King said! I think he was just poking fun at us telling us we mustn’t lift the cover of that silver dish. After all a dish is a dish and it’s no crime to lift a cover even if it is made of silver!”

With that Jenny jumped up and before her husband could stop her she lifted the forbidden cover. Instantly a little white mouse hopped out of the silver dish and scurried away.

“Oh!” Jenny screamed, dropping the cover with a great clatter.

The King who was in an adjoining chamber heard the noise and came in.

“So!” he said, “you have done the one thing that I told you not to do! You haven’t been here three days and although you’ve had everything that heart could wish for yet you couldn’t obey me in this one little matter!”

“Your Majesty,” the man said, “it was my wife who did it, not I.”

“No matter,” the King said, “you, too, are to blame. If you had restrained her it wouldn’t have happened.”

Then he called his servants and had them strip off the fine clothes and dress the couple again in their old rags.

“Now,” he said as he drove them from the castle gates, “never again blame Adam and Eve for the misfortunes which you bring upon yourselves!”

III

SUSAN WALKER, WHAT A TALKER!

There was once a man whose wife was an awful talker. Her name was Susanna. No matter how important it was to keep a matter quiet, if Susanna knew about it, she just had to talk. She was always running to the neighbors and exclaiming:

“Oh, my dear, have you heard so and so?”

Her husband was an industrious fellow. He set nets in the river, he snared birds in the forest, and he worked at any odd jobs that came along.

It happened one day while he was out in the forest that he found a buried treasure.

“Ah!” he thought to himself, “now I can buy a little farm that will keep me and Susanna comfortable the rest of our days!”

He started home at once to tell his wife the good fortune that had befallen them. He had almost reached home when he stopped, suddenly realizing that the first thing Susanna would do would be to spread the news broadcast throughout the village. Then of course the government would get wind of his find and presently officers of the law would come and confiscate the entire treasure.

“That would never do,” he told himself. “I must think out some plan whereby I can let Susanna know about the treasure without risking the loss of it.”

He puzzled over the matter for a long time and at last hit upon something that he thought might prove successful.

In his nets that day he had caught a pike and in one of his snares he had found a grouse. He went back now to the river and put the bird in the fishnet, and then he went to the woods and put the fish in the snare. This done he went home and at once told Susanna about the buried treasure which was going to be the means of making their old age comfortable.

She flew at once into great excitement.

“La! La! A buried treasure! Whoever heard of such luck! Oh, how all the neighbors will envy us when they hear about it! I can hardly wait to tell them!”

“But they mustn’t hear!” her husband told her. “You don’t want the officers of the law coming and taking it all from us, do you?”

“That would be a nice how-do-you-do!” Susanna cried. “What! Come and take our treasure that you found yourself in the forest?”

“Yes, my dear, that’s exactly what they’d do if once they heard about it.”

“Well, you can depend upon it, my dear husband, not a soul will hear about it from me!”

She shook her head vigorously and repeated this many times and then tried to slip out of the house on some such excuse as needing to borrow a cup of meal from a neighbor.

But the man insisted on her staying beside him all evening. She kept remembering little errands that would take her to the houses of various neighbors but each time she attempted to leave her husband called her back. At last he got her safely to bed.

Early next morning, before she had been able to talk to any one, he said:

“Now, my dear, come with me to the forest and help me to carry home the treasure. On the way we’d better see if we’ve got anything in the nets and the snares.”

They went first to the river and when the man had lifted his nets they found a grouse which he made Susanna reach over and get. Then in the woods he let her make the discovery of a pike in one of the snares. She was all the while so excited about the treasure that she hadn’t mind enough left to be surprised that a bird should be caught in a fishnet and a fish in a birdsnare.

Well, they found the precious treasure and they stowed it away in two sacks which they carried home on their backs. On the way home Susanna could scarcely refrain from calling out to every passerby some hint of their good fortune. As they passed the house of Helmi, her dearest crony, she said to her husband:

“My dear, won’t you just wait here a moment while I run in and get a drink of water?”

“You mustn’t go in just now,” her husband said. “Don’t you hear what’s going on?”

There was the sound of two dogs fighting and yelping in the kitchen.

“Helmi is getting a beating from her husband,” the man said. “Can’t you hear her crying? This is no time for an outsider to appear.”

All that day and all that night he kept so close to Susanna that the poor woman wasn’t able to exchange a word with another human being.

Early next morning she escaped him and ran as fast as her legs could carry her to Helmi’s house.

“My dear,” she began all out of breath, “such a wonderful treasure as we’ve found but I’ve sworn never to whisper a word about it for fear the government should hear of it! I should have stopped and told you yesterday but your husband was beating you – ”

“What’s that?” cried Helmi’s husband who came in just then and caught the last words.

“It’s the treasure we’ve found!”

“The treasure? What are you talking about? Begin at the beginning.”

“Well, my old man and me we started out yesterday morning and first we went to the river to see if there was anything in the nets. We found a grouse – ”

“A grouse?”

“Yes, we found a grouse in the nets. Then we went to the forest and looked in the snares and in one we found a pike.”

“A pike!”

“Yes. Then we went and dug up the treasure and put it in two sacks and you could have seen us yourself carrying it home on our backs but you were too busy beating poor Helmi.”

“I beating poor Helmi! Ho! Ho! Ho! That is a good one! I was busy beating my wife while you were getting birds out of fishnets and fish out of snares! Ho! Ho! Ho!”

“It’s so!” Susanna cried. “It is so! You were so beating Helmi! And you sounded just like two dogs fighting! And we did so carry home the treasure!”

But Helmi’s husband only laughed the harder. That afternoon when he went to the Inn he was still laughing and when the men there asked him what was so funny he told them Susanna’s story and soon the whole village was laughing at the foolish woman who found birds in fishnets and fish in snares and who thought that two yelping dogs were Helmi and her husband fighting.

As for the treasure that wasn’t taken any more seriously than the grouse and the pike.

“It must have been two sacks of turnips they carried home on their backs!” the village people decided.

The husband of course said nothing and Susanna, too, was soon forced to keep quiet for now whenever she tried to explain people only laughed.

MIKKO, THE FOX

ADVENTURE I

THE ANIMALS TAKE A BITE

A Farmer once dug a pit to trap the Animals that had been stealing his grain. By a strange chance he fell into his own pit and was killed.

The Ermine found him there.

“H’m,” thought the Ermine, “that’s the Farmer himself, isn’t it? I better take him before any one else gets him.”

So the Ermine dragged the Farmer’s body out of the pit, put it on a sledge, and then, after taking a bite, began hauling it away.

Presently he met the Squirrel who clapped his hands in surprise.

“God bless you, brother!” the Squirrel exclaimed, “what’s that you’re hauling behind you?”

“It’s the Farmer himself,” the Ermine explained. “He fell into the pit that he had digged for us poor forest folk and serve him right, too! Take a bite of him and then come along and help me pull.”

“Very well,” the Squirrel said.

He took a bite of the Farmer and then marched along beside the Ermine, helping him to pull the sledge.

Presently they met Jussi, the Hare. Jussi looked at them in amazement, his eyes popping out of his head.

“Mercy me!” he cried, “what’s that you two are hauling?”

“It’s the Farmer,” the Ermine explained. “He fell into the pit that he digged for us poor forest folk and serve him right, too! Take a bite of him, Jussi, and then come along and help us pull.”