Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/68

60 head. The refuse stuck fast in the besom, so she seized it with her teeth, whereupon an aching pain seized her teeth, a full-grown devil her jaw. Hence that evil one [v. cannibal] was bred, that biter of bone came to close quarters, that keeps rustling in the jaw-bone, that hacks the teeth, digs into the whole head, and keeps gnawing at the members.

(c.)

The stout woman Luonnotar, the furious old quean, went to find a broom in a leafy grove, to get material for a besom in a copse. A pin fell from her bosom, a copper pin dropped suddenly, fell rustling into the withered grass, with a jingling noise into the hay. Hence the worm was bred, hence in the dearly-cherished teeth, in the unfortunate cheek-bones originated Tuoni's grub that eats bone, bites flesh, and plays havoc with the teeth.

(d.)

A blind girl of Pohjola, Väinämöinen's old servant-girl, was dusting his small chamber, was sweeping the floor, when a piece of dirt fell from the broom, a twig snapt off the besom upon the swept floor, upon the dusted boards, near the seams of the planks. Hence the devourer originated, hence the gnawer was bred which shot itself into a mouth, then slid down upon the tongue and stumbled forwards to the teeth, in order to feed upon the blood-filled flesh, to rack with pain the blood-filled bones.

(e.)

The evil house-mistress, Syöjätär, iron's old house-mother, Rakehetar (Hailstone's daughter), pulverised grains of iron, hammered steel points upon an iron rock in an alder-wood mortar with a pestle of alder-wood in a room built of alder-wood. She sifted what she had pounded, and gobbled up those 'groats' of hers. Bits went astray among the teeth and settled themselves in the gums, in order to hack the teeth, to rack the jaw-bones with pain.