Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/196

 1 86 Collectanea.

and she said to it that she wanted an officer in the army to come and marry her at the end of the week. And she told her second sister, and the second sister went into the room and wished with herself a husband, and the chair said that she should get a soldier called Shinel. And then the third sister came, and she asked for herself a husband, and she was told it was not a man but the white fawn on the mountain.

At the end of the week the army officer came and married the first daughter ; and at the end of another week came the soldier, Shine), and married the second daughter. And at the end of another week came the white fawn of the mountain and married the third daughter. The day after the marriage he asked her, " Which do you prefer I should be, a fawn in the day and a man at night, or a fawn at night and a man in the day?"

" I prefer you a man at night," she said, " and a fawn in the day."'

At the end of a year after her marriage she said she would like to go home on a visit. " If you go home," said her husband, "take enough money with you, for your father is very poor, and the soldier Shinel, and the army officer are very poor. Take now this bridle with you, and when you want to come back, shake it and a coach will come for you. But if you let fall a tear the coach will never come for you."

When she had been at home awhile she had a son in the night, and the child was taken from her ; and in the morning she shook the reins and the coach came for her. And when the year was passed she said she would go home again, and he told her the people were now so poor they had no clothes in the house, and he warned her that if anything happened to her to be sure and not let fall a tear.

On the night that she got home she had a young daughter {bi ingea?i 6g acci) and when it was taken from her in the night, she let down a tear on her cheek, and she caught it in a handkerchief, and put a knot on it, and went to the door and shook the reins, but no coach came for her. So she travelled home on foot, and when she got there she found nettles growing in a green field in place of the house. She spent the day crying till the evening came, when she saw a coach pass with her husband in it, and